How to Repair RAW Disk and Recover Files on Windows 10

If your hard disk suddenly turns into the RAW format, you can easily recover all your files using the CHKDSK command prompt on Windows 10.

How to Repair RAW Disk and Recover Files on Windows 10

How to Fix RAW Disk on Windows 10

If your hard disk you are using on your computer, external HDD on which you store your files, or a flash memory turns into RAW format, you do not have to worry too much about saving your files.

Under normal circumstances, the various programs are used to recover the RAW Disk. You can repair the Disk without you purchase any programs to recover your files.

Why does Hard Disk Convert to RAW?

There are several reasons why the HDD converted to RAW. These;

  1. It may be possible to pull the HDD’s USB cable straight away from your computer without safely removing the hardware.
  2. It may be due to a problem in the circuit board of the external HDD.
  3. Suddenly there may be electricity interruptions.
  4. If you are using a laptop and the battery is damaged, it may be to pull suddenly the charge cable.
  5. If the USB socket is dusty or dirty, the voltage may be faulty.
  6. The Hard Disk may logically fail, so it can be a Bad Sector error.
  7. It may be HDD recovery programs misused.
  8. This can happen if the hard drive is constantly plugging in and out of your computer.

After discussing why does HDD turn to RAW format, we will apply the best method of recovering a disk. You can also find out if there is a Bad Sector on the HDD by referring to the Hard Disk Test.

Various methods can be used to recover RAW Disk on Windows system. The best method for this solution is Check Disk.

What is Check Disk?

Check Disk is a Hard Disk check utility that is used in Windows systems. With Check Disk you can check your disk integrity and fix logical disk errors.

How to Convert RAW to NTFS

In this article, we will convert the RAW to NTFS file system. First, plug in the HDD to the external hard disk and then attach it to the other computer.

Afterward, open the CMD command prompt as an administrator on the Windows operating system. Don’t forget that the RAW Disk takes the drive letter. Because we will use the drive letter in the recovery command.

To repair RAW Disk and recover files on Windows, execute the following command at the CMD command prompt. Please don’t forget the drive letter and you will apply your own drive disk here.

chkdsk E:/R

The disk recovery time using Check Disk (chkdsk) command on Windows may vary according to your disk size. For example, if your HDD is 1 TB, this may take 5-8 hours.

After applying the Check Disk command, it will give you output like this!

Microsoft Windows 
(c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\Windows\system32>chkdsk E:/R
The type of the file system is NTFS.
Volume label is Windows7.

Stage 1: Examining basic file system structure ...
File record segment 43361 is unreadable.
  191744 file records processed.
File verification completed.
  1615 large file records processed.
  1 bad file records processed.

Stage 2: Examining file name linkage ...
Correcting sparse file record segment 94955.
Deleting index entry MIA934~1.EVT in index $I30 of file 2997.
Deleting index entry Microsoft-Windows-Kernel-EventTracing%4Admin.evtx in index $I30 of file 2997.
Deleting index entry Local State in index $I30 of file 32232.
Deleting index entry LOCALS~1 in index $I30 of file 32232.
Deleting index entry TransportSecurity in index $I30 of file 32308.
Deleting index entry TRANSP~1 in index $I30 of file 32308.
Deleting index entry 5F5421C4242F67FA.dat in index $I30 of file 79753.
Deleting index entry 5F5421~1.DAT in index $I30 of file 79753.
  253906 index entries processed.
Index verification completed.
CHKDSK is scanning unindexed files for reconnect to their original directory.
Recovering orphaned file 5F5421~1.DAT (163312) into directory file 79753.
Recovering orphaned file 5F5421C4242F67FA.dat (163312) into directory file 79753.
Recovering orphaned file LOCALS~1 (191521) into directory file 32232.
Recovering orphaned file Local State (191521) into directory file 32232.
  3 unindexed files scanned.
Recovering orphaned file TRANSP~1 (191556) into directory file 32308.
Recovering orphaned file TransportSecurity (191556) into directory file 32308.
  3 unindexed files recovered to original directory.
  0 unindexed files recovered to lost and found.

Stage 3: Examining security descriptors ...
Security descriptor verification completed.
  31082 data files processed.
CHKDSK is verifying Usn Journal...
Usn Journal verification completed.

Stage 4: Looking for bad clusters in user file data ...
  191728 files processed.
File data verification completed.

Stage 5: Looking for bad, free clusters ...
  100502500 free clusters processed.
Free space verification is complete.
Correcting errors in the uppercase file.
Adding 1 bad clusters to the Bad Clusters File.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) DATA attribute.
Correcting errors in the master file table's (MFT) BITMAP attribute.
Correcting errors in the Volume Bitmap.

Windows has made corrections to the file system.
No further action is required.

 482240511 KB total disk space.
  79853900 KB in 158913 files.
    100012 KB in 31083 indexes.
         4 KB in bad sectors.
    276591 KB in use by the system.
     65536 KB occupied by the log file.
 402010004 KB available on disk.

      4096 bytes in each allocation unit.
 120560127 total allocation units on disk.
 100502501 allocation units available on disk.

C:\Windows\system32>

After repairing RAW Disk problem with the chkdsk command above, the disk will now be ready as in the following image.

Fixing RAW Disk

   Final Word


In this article, we have discussed the best method to do fix RAW hard disk. Thanks for following us!

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4 Comments

  1. Piteros 25 March 2020

    When I try your chkdsk x: /R … I get the following error:
    The type of the file system is RAW,
    CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

    Not sure what I’m doing wrong or what you’ve described wrong, but on Windows 10 x64 it doesn’t work on RAW. It did, however start originally on that drive and during the recovery the drive ended up in RAW format – was NTFS before… so chkdsk has messed it up and now it’s refusing to access it 🙁

    Reply
    • Tolga Bagci 25 March 2020

      Hello. I think you made a mistake somewhere and now you cannot access the data on your disk.

      Try to repair your disk on another computer. If chkdsk still does not work, convert your disk to NTFS with diskpart.

      If your data on your disk is not important to you, format it and test its health after making it workable again. For example, you can use the HDD Tune program for this process.

      Reply
  2. Kasia Wiewiórska 29 November 2020

    Hello. In first trying to use command chkdsk H:/R after 4 hours repairing my Partition, i got unknown error in stage 3 idk why.
    I start command second time, and after 9 hours i get SUCCESSFULL recovered my NTFS partition completely. After this i check SMART of this disk, and this disk is necessary to change. Now i copy my all files to new Disk.

    Thank You very much !!! I get back my all files again and this give me a chance to move my files. Thank You Again !

    Regards Kasia W.

    Reply
  3. Ghassan Hamed 4 May 2023

    I used this command chkdsk E:/R
    the system gave me this message:
    C:\WINDOWS\system32>chkdsk k:/R
    The type of the file system is RAW.
    CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

    Reply

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