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25 February 2019  Ashley S. Miller  Specialist of Customer Service Dept.
 

Summary
Generally, users may encounter different problem from HDD after using for a long time. Here, we will discuss the reason and provide related solutions to fix disk or partitions turned to raw file system suddenly.



HDD users may encounter different problems in the HDD after a long time of usage. Incorrect operations, crash and other issues could lead to these problems. And the most common one is that the file system of the disk change into RAW format suddenly.
If it is your removable memory device change into RAW format suddenly, please click “USB Device not Recognized in Windows 10/8/7” for solutions.
require to format the disk
disk is shown as unknown and uninitialized
disk show to be raw

Reasons of Hard Disk Change into RAW File System?

This could be caused by the corruption or damage of the partition table or file system (Such as File system of FAT and NTFS). As a result, Windows can not recognize files in the hard disk. Of course, if hard disk has lots of bad sector, it will change into RAW file system suddenly.
We need to make use of the built-in disk management tool in Windows to find out the real reason.

Press Win + R button. Enter “diskmgmt.msc” in the pop up window and click “OK”.

enter diskmgmt.msc in run
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Situation 1: Disk is marked with “Not initialized”

Reason 1: If partitions on your disk are marked with “RAW”, it means the management information of the file system in the HDD is damage. (Click here for solution.)
disk show to be raw
Reason 2 - Disk will be shown in RAW format if the file system of the disk is not supported by Windows.

For example, if the disk was used in Mac OS, you need to use HFSExplorer to access files in the disk. (Click here for solution.)

Situation 2: Disk is marked with “Not initialized”

If the disk is marked with “Not initialized” on the left column, it means that the partition table is damaged. (Click here for solution.)
Partition table, saved in 0 cylinder, records the starting and ending position of each partition. If this partition table is damage, whole disk will be marked to be “Not initialized”.
disk not initialized
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Solutions to Fix the Disk Turned to RAW File System

1). Solution to Fix Partition Turned to RAW File System

Step 1: Recover important data from partition which is in RAW format at first.

Here we recommend you to try the professional data recovery software – Renee Undeleter. It can preview the scanned lost files before recovered when scanning process. Also, it can scan whole disk to find lost files. This can help users to confirm the quality of the recovered files.

Preparation: Download and install Renee Undeleter.

press to the download button
download button mac5

1. Launch Renee Undeleter and select “Whole Partition Recovery”.

select whole partition scan in renee undeleter

2. When the software scan, you can preview the files in the scan result.

preview before recovery
Although Renee Undeleter is a shareware, it has 20MB free recovery quota (Click here for more information). We recommend users can make use of this 20MB to ensure the recovery of important files.

Step 2: Fix the partition with Chkdsk

Here we use the built-in free tool – Chkdsk to repair the partition. Chkdsk will repair the file system. It may directly abandon or overwrite some files. Data recovery will not work any more once users process the Chkdsk. So, please recover important data with data recovery software above before repairing the partition.

1. Press Win + S button and type “cmd” in the pop-up window. Right click “Command Prompt” and select “Run as administrator”.

run command prompt as administrator in start menu

2. Then please type “chkdsk X:/F”. Please modify the X to the drive letter of the target partition. And /F means fix the partition. The partition will work normally once the Chkdsk finishes.

type c to check the c disk

3. If Chkdsk notifies you that there are too many error information in partition and can not repair it, you need to format the partition.

format SD card
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Solution to fix Disk Turn to RAW File System

Step 1: Recover important data from disk which is in RAW format at first.

Here we recommend “Whole Disk Scan” function in data recovery software – Renee Undeleter. This function will rebuild the partition table and regain access to all files (including the deleted files) in each partition of the disk.

Because this scan mode will scan whole disk with a great deal of arithmetic. So the scan and recovery will take a long time.

select whole partition scan in Renee Undeleter
scan disk with whole disk scan of Renee Undeleter

Step 2: Initialize, repartition, and format the disk

1. Go to “Disk Management”. Right click the disk which is shown in RAW format and choose “Initialize”.

how to initialize disk on windows

2. Follow the guidance and click “OK”. After process finish, disk will be in “Online” status.

Want to get more about disk format MBR (Master Boot Record) or GPT? Click “ Knowledge of Partition Table: Differences between GPT & MBR” for more information.
disk unknown not initialized 3

3. Right click the unallocated disk and select “New Simple Volume” in the menu.

add new drive letter

4. Follow the guidance and click “Next” and “OK”. Finally, new partition will be created successfully.

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If your hard disk keeps turning into RAW format, it could be caused by the bad sectors in the disk. Please try solutions in “ Detect and Repair Bad Sectors and Cylinder 0 Error of Hard Drive”.