How to Repair a Corrupted Hard Disk Without Formatting It in Windows 10/8/7

Top 5 Ways to Repair Corrupted Hard Disk (Quick Navigation)

Hard drive corruption is a common issue for Windows 10/8/7 users. Today, we are going to walk you through the solutions on how to fix a corrupted hard drive. Here is the overview of these HDD repair solutions. 

What Causes a Hard Drive to Go Corrupt (Corrupted HDD Signs)

Sometimes, your internal hard drive or external hard drive can get damaged and become unrecognizable or inaccessible in Windows 10/8/7. Generally, hard drive corruption is caused by the following things:

• Power supply and connection errors
• Virus issues
• File system errors
• Bad sectors
• Software/hardware issues
• Physical damage

At the same time, you may receive these error messages like "X:\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable"; The hard drive becomes RAW and prompts a "disk needs to be formatted" error.

Whether it is an internal hard disk or an external hard drive, there are solutions to repair a corrupted hard disk. The most straightforward way to fix a corrupt hard disk is by formatting it, which will cause data loss. If you'd prefer not to lose your data, we will explain a few practical ways to fix corrupted hard drives without formatting them in this post.

First Thing to Do: Recover Data from Corrupted Hard Drive

Since it is easy to lose data during disk repair, if you have important data saved on the corrupted hard drive, you should recover your lost data at first. EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is a professional file recovery tool to help you recover data from formatted, corrupted, and even inaccessible hard drives. 

To use this tool, download the tool and then follow the following steps to recover your data.

Step 1. Scan the hard drive partition

Select the drive on your hard disk where you lost or deleted files. Click "Scan" and let EaseUS data recovery software scan all lost data and files on the selected hard drive.

Step 2. Check the results

When the scan completes, you can apply the "Filter" feature or click the "Search files or folders" button to find the lost files on the hard drive.

Step 3. Restore lost hard drive data

Select wanted files that you lost on the drive and click "Recover" to save them.

Now that you've got back the crucial data, you can follow the solutions here to fix the damaged hard drive.

How to Repair Corrupted Hard Disk Without Formatting (5 Ways)

Whether it is an internal hard disk or an external hard drive, you can find solutions to repair a corrupted hard disk. The most direct way to fix a corrupt hard disk is formatting the HDD, which will cause data loss. In this post, we will explain 5 practical ways to fix corrupted hard drive without formatting.

Solution 1. Check and Repair Disk to Fix Corrupted Hard Drive with Antivirus Software

Viruses and malware can lead to hard drive corruption. Connect the hard drive to a Windows PC and use a reliable antivirus/malware tool to scan the drive or the system. To get rid of this problem, you can turn to Windows Defender or some reputable third-party antivirus software. Here is an example of using Norton to remove a virus.

Step 1. Download and run Norton Power Eraser. If a new version is available, Norton Power Eraser will check and download it.

Step 2. In the "Norton Power Eraser" window, click the "Scan for Risks" option.

Step 3. Wait for the tool to remove any risks from your system.

Step 4. After successfully removing any potential risks, click "Finish".

Solution 2. How to Repair Corrupted Hard Disk Using CMD

When a hard drive's file system gets corrupt and you can't access the hard disk, you can run a CHKDSK scan to repair the corrupt hard drive without formatting it.

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

CHKDSK Not Working in Windows 10/8/7?

CHKDSK is not working on your Windows computer? The reliable and free CHKDSK alternative method is available here to fix the CHKDSK not working issue with ease.

To give you some brief info, the “/f” parameter in CHKDSK fixes any errors that are found. The "/r" parameter asks the command to locate bad sectors on the drive. The “/x” parameter 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. In the search results, right-click on the "Command Prompt" and select "Run as administrator".

Step 3. Type the command: chkdsk E: /f /r /x in the Command Prompt window and press Enter. In the command, replace E with your drive letter.

Solution 3. Try File System Repair Software to Fix Damaged Hard Disk

EaseUS CleanGenius is a user-friendly computer fixing tool that is both safe and lightweight. It's a perfect alternative to CHKDSK command. Use this one-click tool to fix the damaged file system easily.

Step 1.  DOWNLOAD EaseUS CleanGenius on your computer and complete the installation. 

Step 2. Run the software. Click "Optimization", and then choose "File Showing" . 

Step 3. Select the drive with a corrupted file system. Tick the "Check and fix file system error" option and click "Execute".

Step 4. Wait the tool performs the repairing task. After that, click the "here" button to check the drive.

Solution 4. Update the Disk Driver to Fix Corrupted Hard Drive Without Formatting

If a driver issue causes the hard drive corruption, you need to update the disk driver. There might be some issues with the device driver installed on your PC. Follow these steps to update the driver:

Step 1. Right-click on This PC or My Computer and select Properties.

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

Step 3. Right-click your drive and choose "Update driver".

Step 4. Select "Search automatically for updated driver software..."

Solution 5. Seek Help from Professional Data Recovery Services

If the corruption is severe and the above solutions fail to repair the corrupted hard drive, you can ask for help from EaseUS's technical support team. They provide 1 on 1 remote assistance service to fix HDD/SSD issues, recover partition, wipe data, etc. 

Bonus Tips: How to Prevent Hard Drive Corruption Effectively

Repairing a hard drive is a difficult task, even for the experts. A couple of ways to protect your hard drive from corruption are by safely removing external drives before unplugging and making a regular backup.

To do the latter, you can use a tool like EaseUS backup and recovery software. It helps back up important data from your hard drives. To use this tool:

Step 1. For the first time you use EaseUS Todo Backup to back up files, click Create backup on the home screen and then mouse click the big question mark to select backup contents.

Step 2. Since you're going to back up files and folders on your computer, go on with the "File" backup mode, where you can select pictures, videos, documents and all other types of files to back up.

Step 3. Follow the paths to locate the files, folders or directories you want to back up, select them all and click "OK".

Step 4. Now you need to select a backup location to save and retain the backup.

Step 5. EaseUS Todo Backup allows users to save the backup files to every device that is handy for you, like a local hard drive, external USB drive, SD card, network drive, or a NAS drive, plus a cloud drive of the EaseUS brand. We personally recommend users to choose the cloud drive prior to a pysical drive to save important backups due to the greater accessibility, flexibility and safety.

To be able to access to EaseUS cloud, all you need is an email registration and login. 

Step 6. If you're interested in an automatic and intelligent backup schedule for the next file backup task, go on with the "Options" setting. There you can encypt a confidential file backup, compress the backup image size, or customize a backup scheme to tell the software in what time to start the next backup. 

Customize an advanced and automatic backup task here:

Click "Backup Now" to start the file backup process. Your completed backup files are visible on the left area in a card style.

Conclusion (Check Feature List) 

Does your hard disk being repaired? If you still cannot figure out the appropriate solutions to fix a corrupted hard drive, see the features of each solution. You can select the right solution to fix your drive according to your own situation.

Hard drive corruption is a common issue for lots of users. When your hard drive gets damaged, the data is actually not lost. Using a tool like EaseUS, you can recover data even from corrupted hard disks. Once that's done, you can go ahead and start fixing your drive.