Table of Contents
- why usb removable disk became raw format?
- Convert raw external hard drive to ntfs without losing data in Windows 10/8/7
- Convert raw external hard drive to ntfs/fat32 with cmd
My wd external usb disk 1TB suddenly turned to raw and asked for a formatting... The external drive was bought 2 years ago and was used for 2 times only for work files and folders. This morning when I took it with me to my office, it warned a reformat window when I get it connected to Windows 10. How did it become raw file system? Is there any method to convert the raw external disk to ntfs without losing data?
From Alan
Raw file system asked formatting
Why removable disk became raw file system?
RAW means unexplored, not used, blank. When it happened to a hard drive, it means the hard drive is damaged with an unrecognized file system. There are several possible causes that your disk may become raw format.
- Virus infected the file system and get it damaged that Windows or your pc can no longer recognize its old file system.
- Format failure - or software failure brought by third party programs that failed to operate a formatting on your disk drive, when the formatting failed, the file system which the formatting worked on, shall became damaged too.
- Improper manul operations - remove/unplug the hard drive without safely removal
- Power failure unexpectly
- Internal errors on usb hard drive like bad blocks, chip error, logical inside errors...
If the usb disk became raw, keep it untouched from further use. What you should do is to rescue its inside data if they are of very importance to you. Here this article we would introduce freeware for you to rescue your data from raw disk.
Convert external hard drive raw file system to ntfs/fat32/exfat with freeware in Windows 10/8/7
There are two steps for converting an raw external hard drive to ntfs/exfat/fat32 no matter how the usb disk turned to raw format.
Part1: Recover data from raw external usb drive with freeware
iCare Data Recovery Free is a free program that you may use for free recovering files from inaccessible raw usb disk drive.
Step#1: Download, Install the program and connect raw hard drive to Windows 10/8/7 and then launch the freeware, choose 'Advanced File Recovery'
Start iCare for fixing raw drive
Step 2: Select the raw usb hard drive and then click 'next' to start raw drive recovery
Select raw drive to recover
Step 3: Save files found in the raw drive to another hard drive.
Recover data from raw drive.
Part#2: Repair bad file system by Windows file system repair
Step 1: Open 'This PC' and then see whether you can see your raw disk there, if yes, right click the disk and then go to its 'Properties'
Step 2: Click Tools and then Check button to start repairing the file system errors.
repair file system error checking
Step 3: Confirm the check disk options and then start
repair file system error checking 2
When the repairing finished, see whether your hard drive was working as normal or not. If it still shows raw disk, then you need to try the following free format tools to convert raw to ntfs/fat32/exfat.
Diskpart cmd to convert raw external disk to ntfs/fat32/exfat
Before using diskpart cmd, please make sure you have no important data on the raw disk that needed to be resuced, or any change onto the disk may result in further damage to its inside data.
Photo tutorial: How to format usb disk raw file system to ntfs/fat32/exfat using cmd
Step#1: Press Windows icon+R to open the cmd
open cmd with 'windows + R' key
Step#2: type 'Diskpart' to launch diskpart command prompt.
open diskpart
- 3, type 'select disk *'
- 4, type 'clean'
- 5, type 'create partition primary'
- 6, type 'format fs=ntfs quick' or 'format fs=fat32 quick' or type 'format fs=exfat quick' depends on what kind of file system you need - fat32/exfat/ntfs
format raw file system ntfs with diskpart
Video: how to convert raw to ntfs
Related Articles
Writer of iCareAll, is specialized in fixing various kinds of digital device problems.
