Solutions for Raw Drive Cannot Be Fixed

Summary

Here are solutions for a Raw drive cannot be fixed, neither format. If there is important data on the drive and needs to be recovered, do not feel hesitated to download EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard for Raw drive data recovery.

"My Seagate external HDD suddenly shows up as Raw and it asks me to format the disk in the drive before you can use it. However I try to open it, it prompts the message saying hard drive needs formatting. So I did it regardless of the important data there, what annoys me currently is that Raw drive cannot be fixed due to format failure! What should I do now to repair Raw drive without losing data?"

Normally, formatting is the most suggested way to fix a hard drive, USB drive or memory card with the Raw file system, and most of the time it works. But sometimes you may be out of luck, there are situations in which you can not repair a Raw drive by formatting as expected. For example, Windows was unable to complete the format.

Raw drive data recovery

No matter how you encounter the Raw file system, do not try to format it before applying professional data recovery software to recover important data. When you see the Raw drive, it means that the drive has unknown Windows file system. Since no file system exists on the drive, it can no longer be used to store data, and you can not access the existing data, either.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is the recommended hard drive recovery software for Raw hard drive data recovery. Simply download it on your PC, and follow the easy data recovery steps. After then, you can feel risk-free to fix the raw hard drive that cannot be formatted.

Step 1. Locate the RAW hard drive

• Download and install EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard on your Windows PC or laptop.
• Launch the software. Make sure that Windows has detected your RAW hard drive and correctly listed the drive letter on the disk map.
• Left-click on the RAW drive and then click the "Scan" button.

Step 2. Scan the data on the RAW hard drive

At this stage, the software would work very hard to search all data through the entire drive, and timely display the data as the scanning task goes on. 

Tip: users are allowed to pause the scan process for an instant recovery as soon as the target files show up, but it's better to stay and wait for a complete scan till the end.

Step 3. Check files under the "Extra Files" result

• Besides the general scan results of all lost data on the selected drive, the "Extra Files" is specially designed for RAW hard drive/USB flash drive/micro SD card data recovery, under which you're likely to recover what you want with a high success rate.
• Of course, check all the scan results if necessary. Choose the target files and click the "Recover" button. You should save the items to a new location.

How to fix the Raw hard drive that cannot be formatted in all Windows

The process of repairing a Raw hard drive is to convert Raw to NTFS, FAT32 or other recognized file system. When Windows Explorer quick format or Windows Disk Management is not able to complete the format, try raw hard drive format by using diskpart command line.

Step 1. Click on Start and then type cmd and hit Enter.
Step 2. Right click on cmd and then click on Run As Administrator.
Step 3. Type Diskpart and then hit on Enter
Step 4. Type convert X: /fs:ntfs and hit Enter. (X ought to be the drive letter of your RAW disk storage device. Also, you can replace NTFS with other desired file system such as exfat, fat32, etc.)

What if diskpart cannot fix raw drive and eventually failed? There should be severe hard drive damage issue and the last resort you have to try is the low-level format, which will completely erase all data on the drive and make data unrecoverable. So, remember that raw drive data recovery always comes before the format.