Open or Repair Corrupted Hard Disk Without Formatting in Windows 10/8/7

Summary

Here are two parts to open and repair the corrupted hard disk without formatting. Part 1 - Repair your hard disk in 5 effective ways. And part 2 - Access the corrupted hard drive with data recovery software. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard can access your corrupted hard drive and get back lost data. Follow the steps below to repair your hard drive without losing data.

Symptoms of Hard Disk Drive Corruption

Sometimes, your hard drive can be damaged and become unrecognized or inaccessible in Windows 10/8/7 due to various reasons. No matter it is an internal hard disk or an external hard drive, you can find solutions. Here are some common causes and symptoms of hard drive corruption.

• External hard drive not recognized, reading or showing up while plugging into PC.
• Get "X:\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable" error message.
• The hard drive has a drive letter in My Computer but becomes inaccessible and says: "You need to format the disk in the drive before you can use it".
• The hard drive becomes RAW and prompts 'disk needs to be formatted' error.
• Hard disk shows 0 bytes.
• Others.....

Part 1 - How to Repair Corrupted Internal & External Hard Disk 

When you encounter one of the situations, you have to repair corrupted hard disk to make it work. Here are five ways to repair your corrupted hard drive. Before you try any of them, you should try the simple fixes first:

• Check the power supply.
• Change the USB port.
• Try the hard drive on another PC, if your PC can’t detect it.
• Change the drive letter assigned to the storage media to restore the corrupted hard drive. 

Also read: Fix/Repair Corrupted USB Drive Without Formatting

1. Check the Hard Disk（Power Supply and Connection Errors）

If you are using an external hard drive, you should check the connection. It’s possible that the storage media is taking the power from the USB port itself. Try to unplug it and connect it to your PC again. Try another USB port or another computer. It is possible that only your PC can't read your device.

Then check the power supply. Some external hard drive has a separate power supply. So you must check if it works properly. Also, run a thorough check:

Step 1: Open This PC or Computer, right-click the hard drive and select "Properties".

Step 2: Click "Tools > Tab Error checking > Check".

Step 3: Select "Check local disk" and click "Start".

Close all running and open programs, select the option to let the system check upon the next boot. After this, restart PC.

2. Update the Disk Driver (Driver Issue)

If you try another computer and it works, you need to update the disk driver. There might be some issue with your device driver installed on your PC. Follow the details below:

Step 1: Right-click on This PC/My Computer and choose "Properties".

Step 2: In the taskbar on the left, click Device Manager and expand "Universal Serial Bus controllers". Then you'll see a yellow exclamation mark if your disk driver is out of date.

Step 3: Right-click and choose "Update driver".

Step 4: Choose "Search automatically for updated driver software..."

3. Use the CMD Command (For File System Errors)

CHKDSK command prompt checks the file system and file system metadata of a volume for logical and physical errors. If used without parameters, CHKDSK displays only the status of the volume and does not fix any errors. If used with the /f, /r, /x, or /b parameters, it fixes errors on the volume. 

The "/f" parameter tells CHKDSK to fix any errors it finds. "/r" tells it to locate the bad sectors on the drive and recover readable information. "/x" forces the drive to dismount before the process starts. 

Step 1: Next to the Windows Start menu, in the 'Search Windows' box, type cmd.

Step 2: On the search result, right-click on the Command Prompt and select Run as administrator.

Step 3: Type the command:

Here you should replace E with your drive letter. 

4. Run Antivirus to Check Your HDD

As we know, viruses and malware can cause hard drive corruption. Therefore, an antivirus scan may repair the corrupt hard drive and make the drive accessible again.

Step 1: Connect the hard drive to a Windows PC.

Step 2: Use a reliable antivirus/malware tool to scan the drive or the system. Bitdefender, Norton, Kaspersky, Avast or AVG, any one of them is my suggestion.

5. Run SFC Scan to Fix Damaged HDD

SFC checks system file integrity and replaces a corrupt or damaged system file with a cached copy. It helps fix the damaged or missing Windows system files that may cause drive corruption. Follow the steps below:

Step 1: Type Command Prompt in the search bar, right-click it and choose "Run as administrator".

Step 2: Type the following cmd and hit "Enter".

If the drive is an external device, follow this command:

Replace letter c: with your hard drive letter. Wait for the scan to finish and then restart the system. Check if you can access the drive.

Part 2 - Access and Recover Files from Corrupted Internal & External Hard Drive 

If you have important data on the corrupted device, the best choice is to access the device and get the data to another place. To access hard drive without formatting, there is no other way but ask a free data recovery program for help. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is able to read the device and recovers data even the drive becomes RAW. You can download the demo version of the hard drive recovery software and give it a try.

Step 1. Choose the external hard drive

Since you're going to recover data from the external hard drive, run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and under the External Devices tab, choose the exact drive where you lost data. Click Scan.

Step 2. Scan for lost data

The software will start immediately to scan all over the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you could see more and more data showing up in the results.

Step 3. Preview and recover data

After the scan is over, check the scan results for the desired data. You can preview the file by double-clicking on it. Click Recover and choose another location to save the recovered data.

EaseUS has a success rate of 99.75%. If you need manual service, you can also contact the support team through live chat.

Bonus Tips - Back Up Your Data Frequently

Recovery or repair is not the perfect way to prevent data loss. It just can reduce data loss. If you want to completely recover your files, you need to create a backup for your files and save it to a safe place.

To back up files and folders, I recommend you free backup and restore software - EaseUS Todo Backup. With this software, all things become easier. And you can back up files with a schedule or a password. Besides, this software can back up the system, any type of file or the whole disk or partition.

Details: Back up Files before Formatting