RAW Drive Repair: How to Fix RAW Format Hard Disk or External Hard Drive

Overview of External Hard Drive Becoming RAW

Sometimes, your computer hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, or any other external storage device might suddenly become RAW. When your hard drive becomes RAW, it means that your hard drive is not formatted with a compatible file system like NTFS or FAT32. Also, the data on it becomes inaccessible.

How to Tell if a Hard Drive is RAW? If you encounter one of the following situations, your (external) hard drive has become RAW.

• The file system shows as "RAW" • File names contain unusual characters • Windows prompts, "This disk is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?"

If you encounter any of the above situations, then the next thing you need to know is how to fix RAW drive without losing any files. Based on our experience, there are 2 methods to fix RAW external hard drive. Both methods are listed below, and you can also use them to repair RAW SD card, USB flash drive, and other storage devices.

Top 10 Best Data Recovery Software for Windows and Mac

Here is a list of the best data recovery software for Windows and Mac users. Retrieve deleted or lost data quickly with data recovery software.

# [RAW External Hard Drive Recovery](#part2)

The method to repair a RAW hard drive varies, depending on the state of the drive.

Method 1: Repair RAW External Hard Drive without Formatting

If your disk is showing RAW format but still has a drive letter, you can try fixing the RAW hard drive without formatting using CMD. Using CHKDSK, you have a chance of fixing your RAW hard drive without formatting it. Some people may say that CHKDSK is not available for RAW disks, but that's not true. If your external hard drive has a drive letter, try repairing it with CMD. If your external hard drive shows as RAW and does not have a drive letter, proceed to Method 2 instead.

Step 1: Connect the external hard drive in RAW format to your computer.

Step 2: Click the "Search" icon on the taskbar, type in cmd, and then right-click "Command Prompt" and select "Run as administrator."

Step 3: Type in chkdsk G: /f and press Enter to fix your RAW external hard drive. (Replace "G:" with the letter assigned to your RAW hard drive.)

After the process, you can check your hard drive in “Disk Management” to see if it has been fixed. If CHKDSK doesn't work, don't worry. You can still fix RAW external hard drive with the methods below.

Method 2: Format RAW External Hard Drive to NTFS Without Losing Data

A straightforward solution is to recover data from the RAW external hard drive first and then format it to NTFS or any other file system of your choice. As mentioned, RAW signifies that your external hard drive is unformatted. Hence, the direct fix is to format the RAW drive to NTFS, FAT32, or any other available file system. However, it's well-known that formatting inevitably leads to data loss on the storage device. To avoid data loss, you can use the 100% secure Data Recovery Wizard tool to retrieve your files before or after formatting.

As one of the best data recovery software for Windows, the Data Recovery Wizard tool will help you safely and quickly restore all your files from the hard drive. After that, you can format your RAW external hard drive to NTFS with peace of mind, without worrying about losing any files.

Firstly, recover data from RAW hard drive:

Below you will find a video tutorial and step-by-step instructions. Choose the one that suits you best to immediately recover files from your hard drive.

Video Tutorial: How to Recover Files from RAW Hard Drive with Data Recovery Wizard

Detailed steps to recover files using the Data Recovery Wizard tool:

Step 1: Select and scan the RAW partition

If the RAW partition has a partition label, you can directly select it from the drive list and click "Scan" to search for lost files. If the RAW partition loses its label, it will be identified as "Lost Partition". Just select "Lost Partition" and click "Scan" to perform a full scan on the RAW drive.

Step 2. Preview the data found in the scan result

When the scan is finished, all recoverable files on the RAW hard drive will be displayed. Look through these files and locate the one you want to recover. You can sort the scan results by file type, or search for a specific file or folder in the “Search for files or folders” box.

Step 3. Recover Data from the RAW Partition

Select all the files and click on “Recover” to restore all the data. Choose another internal or external hard drive to save the recovered data and click on “OK” to start RAW drive recovery.

This solution also works for USB flash drive recovery and RAW portable drive recovery. Apart from RAW disk recovery, the software is capable of retrieving data in other scenarios, such as restoring deleted files after emptying the Recycle Bin, recovering data from formatted SD card, restoring lost data after OS reinstallation, and more. It's worthwhile to download the Data Recovery Wizard tool on your computer to minimize the risk of data loss.

Next, format the RAW drive to NTFS:

After successfully recovering files from RAW external hard drive, you can format the external hard drive to NTFS. After formatting, the drive will be normal and usable.

Step 1: Connect the RAW external hard drive to your computer.

Step 2. Go to This PC > Manage > Disk Management.

Step 3: Right click on the RAW drive and select "Format".

Step 4: Choose a file system (such as NTFS) and assign the drive a letter.

Step 5: Click on 'Start' to format the RAW hard drive. Once it's done, click on 'OK'.

Method 3: Repair RAW External Hard Drive with RAW Recovery Service

You can also try Manual RAW Recovery service to effectively repair RAW external hard drive and retrieve data.

Please provide the English content you want translated, and I'll translate it into Chinese for you promptly.

RAW Recovery Services Tool

Contact our experts for a free evaluation now

Consult with our Data Recovery Experts for personalized manual RAW recovery services. After a free diagnosis, we offer the following services:

• Repair damaged RAW drives without formatting
• Data recovery from RAW drives, including BitLocker encrypted drives
• Recover RAW partitions, RAW USB, RAW flash drives, RAW external hard drives, and more

Frequently Asked Questions about RAW Drives

Here are some questions and answers related to RAW drives and NTFS drives. Continue reading for more help.

1. Can I recover RAW hard drive?

Yes, you can use data recovery software to perform a RAW drive recovery.

Select and scan the RAW partition Preview the data found from the scanning result Recover data from RAW partition

2. How to convert RAW to NTFS?

Convert RAW to NTFS without Formatting:

Step 1. Run the tool: Data Recovery Wizard to recover data.

Step 2: Use the command prompt to convert RAW to NTFS:

1. Disk partition utility (Diskpart)
2. H: /FS:NTFS

3. What can cause RAW Drive?

There can be numerous reasons that lead to an external hard drive turning RAW:

• The operating system does not support the file system. • The file system structure is corrupted. • The volume is spanned or part of a RAID.