Restore hard drive from raw. Restore RAW to NTFS or FAT32 to USB, SD, HDD without data loss. Methods for repairing a RAW file system disk

Good afternoon!. Not so long ago, we successfully solved two global problems in operating rooms Microsoft systems, namely, they eliminated the black screen when loading Windows 10 and were able to defeat the endless Windows 8.1 update, for which I congratulate you. But Windows does not want to give up and periodically throws up interesting and not always pleasant situations. I have HDD A 4TB Seagate NAS HDD that holds my movie collection on a beautiful, winter day HDD disk began to be defined as RAW file system and won't open standard means of the OS. Naturally, I would like to return it to working condition and fix RAW format without data loss, which we will actually do in this article and, most importantly, learn how to prevent such situations in the future.

What is RAW (file system)

Surely, many of my readers, in the vast majority, know only the NTFS file system, since it is the standard in operating systems of the Windows family, those who are older and more technically savvy know FAT16 and FAT32. Those who follow the latest news and trends in the industry have already read it, and some have even got to know the new ReFS, but few people know about the "file system" ( HDD status) RAW, and this is not surprising, because if you met her, then in most cases you have problems.

File system RAW is a state hard drive or other storage device that does not have a known Windows file system. Since there is no file system on the drive, there can't be any files or folders on the drive, and it can't be used to store data, that's how your Windows thinks and shouldn't be blamed for it.

You can read a little more about the RAW file system here https://ru.wikipedia.org/wiki/RAW_(file_system)

Reasons for the appearance of RAW on hard drives

Here is a list of the main problems that can cause your hard drive to appear as RAW:

• MBR partition table corruption
• Damage to boot blocks on the file system
• If you had NTFS, then the area of ​​\u200b\u200bthe main MFT file table could be damaged
• Your disk has a different file system from the start, for example, when it was previously part of a RAID array, since storage systems have their own file systems.
• There is a problem with the drivers, your system could not find the correct driver that could correctly detect the HDD.
• Incorrect or abnormal shutdown of the computer
• A problem with USB port ami on the motherboard
• Problem with docking stations for external connection of rigid disks
• You do not correctly remove your flash drive or HDD, as a result of which you break its file system, unfortunately NTFS is critical to this. Here, on the one hand, the user's illiteracy, and on the other hand, the operating system slightly deceives him, a simple example, you copy a file to your USB flash drive. You logically have a slider with the status of copying, it visually ends, but the problem is that the system continues to copy it from the buffer, in background. The buffer was created to speed up copying, and if at that moment a person simply pulls out the flash drive, then the information on it will be damaged at best. For such things, there is a safe removal of the device.

Methods for repairing a RAW file system disk

There is a lot of writing on the internet about various methods that supposedly help hard recovery disk or flash drive with RAW, but the problem with most sites is that they are not run by specialists who check everything from their own experience, but by stupid copywriters who simply rewrite other people's articles with errors and jambs, and for additional questions or errors, the authors of these articles simply rubbish and do not answer. As a result, the user loses his data and becomes frustrated with everything and everyone. From the methods I want to highlight:

• Checking the disk for errors via CHKDSK, whether it only applies to the system disk or not, and in system recovery mode
• AOMEI Partition Assistant is a chic combiner with extensive toolkit, thanks to it we have enlarged the C drive in Windows 10 or converted a GPT disk to MBR.
• DMDE utility - it allows you to find lost partitions
• TestDisk - The utility also allows you to find lost partitions
• Active Partition Recovery for Windows Professional - can also fix errors in the boot sector
• Minitool Power Data Recovery is another tool that allows you to scan your hard drive for other file systems, and allows you to recover RAW files.

What does a RAW partition look like?

And so, before showing what to do when restoring your HDD or flash drive, I'll show you how it all looks. I have on home computer Windows 8.1 operating system is installed, it suits me in all respects. Also, to store various information, I use the usual hard disks 3.5 inch format. On them I have films, music and a huge number of video lessons and courses. To connect hard drives I use Agestar docking stations, they are shown in the photo below.

On one of the fine days when connecting disks, autorun did not work for me on one of them. I go to "My Computer" and what I see is that the disk I need received the letter G, but it does not display information about its volume and load. When you try to open it, Windows Explorer just hangs tightly and does not react for about 5 minutes.

Five minutes later, instead of opening the disk, a window appeared:

To use a drive in drive G: first format it. Do you want to format it

Naturally, this was not part of my plans, since the disk is full of information. Sometimes I met this and it was connected with the fact that the disk connected through the docking station did not have enough voltage, I switched it to another one, the effect is the same. Connected it directly via SATA, it was still unavailable.

I opened the "(diskmgmt.msc)" snap-in. The rig itself also opened for about 5 minutes and blunted. As a result, I received a list of my hard drives, and what was my surprise that I saw my 4 terabyte drive, the RAW file system, with a letter assigned to it.

When I tried to open a RAW disk from the Disk Management snap-in, I got an error:

Can't access G:\. The file or folder is corrupted. Reading is impossible.

How to fix a disk with a RAW system

As I tell you over and over, you should always start with physical layer. First, open your "Device Manager" and make sure that you do not have yellow warnings on your hardware there, especially in the " USB controllers"if you have a disk or flash drive connected through them and in the" Disk devices "section.

Most often they are associated with drivers. Therefore, I advise you to download and install the latest drivers for your computer equipment, focus on motherboard, drives and processor. I have already told you how to update drivers on a Windows computer, if you don’t know how, I advise you to read it.

Be sure to check your physical wires after updating the drivers, if possible, try installing others. You can move external docking stations or a USB flash drive to another USB port to rule out this probable cause. If there are no problems at the level of physics and iron, then we have no choice but to resort to software solutions.

Restoring a RAW disk via chkdsk (checking the disk for errors)

When I started looking for ways to fix the RAW file system on my devices, I very often came across articles that try to check your HDD for errors using the built-in Windows tools, the so-called chkdsk utility. I remind you that I have an operating room Windows system 8.1. There are two ways to start checking the disk for errors, through GUI or using the command line.

I try to start from graphical mode, I remind you that this is done through the properties of the disk. I click in the "Disk Management" snap-in in my own way and select its properties. On the General tab, my hard drive was displayed as empty, it had a volume of 0 bytes. Go to the "Service" tab.

Select "Check for Errors" and click Check. Personally, I immediately got a window with an error:

Let's try to do the same, but from the command line. To do this, open the cmd shell as an administrator and enter the command:

chkdsk G: /f (Where G: is the letter of your RAW volume)

The scanning process will start, if everything is fine, then you should determine the old file system, in my case, it is NTFS, and the volume label is also determined, in my case, it is HDD-48 (Movies). Now begins three stages of checks on bad sectors, searching and restoring non-indexed files and repairing the file table itself.

In my case, after half a minute, this gave the result in the form of a restored HDD, now it had NTFS, and not RAW type.

If chkdsk for RAW disks is not applicable on your system, then you will receive an error message:

Here, for some reason, the operating system was unable to install the previous one, and shows the wrong type. In such cases, the chkdsk utility with the / f switch will not help you, but don't be discouraged, everything is fixable, we will fix it below.

Restoring a RAW disk when the system won't boot

There are situations when you cannot run a disk check for errors due to the fact that your Windows operating system does not load. To go far, the recent error 0xc0000098 or whea uncorrectable error can be listed for a very long time. In each of these cases, we have developed an algorithm:

• If you are my regular guest and subscriber, then you probably saw my publication on how to return the item "Last good configuration", from which it is easy to revive the system, but this option is not enabled by default.
• The next item we launched command line but from regime Windows recovery , which can be launched via F8 at startup or from a bootable USB flash drive, which you should have, if not, then make it 5 minutes, if you have, of course, another computer. Do not forget to set up booting in BIOS from a USB flash drive. When you get the language selection window, press the Shift and F10 keys at the same time to open the command prompt.

Among the additional parameters, you can also find an item with a command line.

First of all, we need to calculate the drive letter, since here it may differ

If all is well, then you have successfully restored system disk, if fate befell you in the form of the message "CHKDSK is not allowed for RAW disks", then do not rush to get upset and this is fixable.

Before the following manipulations, I advise you to practice using future utilities by creating RAW disks in a test environment in a virtual machine, as I have already described how to do this

Easily format a drive or RAW partition when there is no important data on it

Before I move on to describing more advanced methods, I want to inform you that if you have a flash drive or hard drive that is in a RAW state no important data, then you can generally quickly format everything and return it to working condition, as I remind you that the RAW state is most often that the system cannot find the previous file system on the media. Open the Disk Management snap-in, remind you to press WIN and R at the same time and write diskmgmt.msc there. In the snap, find your RAW disk that you need to fix and turn into NTFS. Click on it right click mouse and select "Format" from the context menu.

Specify the type of file system NTFS and fix RAW format on your media.

We agree that all data will be destroyed, since for you in this case they are insignificant.

As you can see this method the easiest to fix HDD RAW format.

If, when you try to format, the "Format" item is inactive, then in this case you will need to delete the partition.

When a partition is deleted, your drive will be in an unpartitioned state. Right click and select "Create Simple Volume"

As a result, we got a fixed HDD or flash drive in the form of NTFS, and not the notorious RAW.

Unfortunately, sometimes you can encounter a situation where a user turns on a computer or laptop, and instead of some logical partition, a disk is displayed that has an incomprehensible RAW format. What is it, let's try to find out. At the same time, we will consider some of the simplest ways to convert this format to normal.

RAW format: what is it?

If we talk about this type of format, you need to clearly understand that, in fact, this is not even a format in the usual sense. This is a modified type of file system.

When accessing such a section, two types of problems can be noted. First, in file manager the volume may not be displayed at all. And secondly, even if it is visible, then there are either no files on it, or the system suggests immediate formatting, since the file system is incompatible with the operating system (RAW format of HDDs). How to fix this situation? You need to choose the right approach, because formatting a partition with the destruction of even non-displayed data is not the best option.

Why are HDD formats changing?

Before proceeding directly to solving the problem, it is necessary to clarify the reasons for changing the structure of the section. In general, it is generally accepted among experts that the RAW format of HDDs (how to fix it to a readable one will be discussed later), as a result, can appear, for example, when exposed to some viruses that change the file system purposefully, when the power is suddenly turned off ( electricity) at the time of performing any operations involving direct access to the partition, etc.

Actually, after that, sometimes the disk can be seen even with the folders and files present on it, but perform operations, say, to change the volume label, format it standard means, resize and much more becomes simply impossible. This happens because, roughly speaking, there is a change in the file system or fatal errors appear in the partition table. However, there are several solutions on what to do if RAW format HDDs appear on the system. How to fix this situation, consider in more detail.

Correction Method

Now let's look at the main aspects of the remediation processes. As is probably already clear, HDD recovery as the main task, it uses a solution that allows you to bring the partition's file system into a form that would be perceived by the operating system itself (FAT32, NTFS, etc.). Note that in most cases, even rolling back the system to a previous state does not give the desired result, so you should not do this. It's just a waste of time.

To begin with, you can try to make the section display files and folders, which in some cases makes it possible to copy them to another location, for example, to the same removable media.

How to make files visible and copy them to another location?

RAW format processing in this case is performed using a very interesting utility called MiniTool Power Data Recovery (the program belongs to the class of shareware).

After installation in the application, you need to run the Lost Partition Recovery module, select the required partition and run a Full Scan. Upon completion of the process, a list of all available files will be displayed in the program window. It remains to mark the necessary data and click the save button (Save). The application will prompt you to select a location where the selected files will be copied. Specify it and activate the process. After that, you can start formatting the partition. If the procedure is not available, proceed to the next step.

The easiest way to restore the format using the system

Now let's focus on how to convert RAW to NTFS with our own Windows tools(especially since it is for such a solution that is best suited).

First you need to launch the command line (cmd) from the Run menu (Win + R). Note that HDD recovery can only be done in this way, a standard partition check in the environment Windows result will not give.

Now it all comes down to just typing the command chkdsk "drive letter": / f (for example, in the case of drive D it will look like chkdsk d: / f) - and pressing the enter key. It remains to wait for the process to complete, during which the file system will be restored, and reboot the system.

By the way, this method in file systems that previously had the NTFS structure is also perfect for system disks. Only when using this technique will it be necessary to boot a computer terminal or laptop from a bootable or recovery disk.

Correcting the format using the TestDisk utility

At this stage, we will consider another aspect of the topic "RAW format of HDD disks: how to fix it." TestDisk (utility for quick recovery original format) is best. The main advantage of this application is that it does not require installation. Since it is available as a portable version. Minus - it does not have a Russified interface and works in a mode similar to DOS.

So, let's start HDD recovery. At the first stage after starting the program, you need to select the creation of a new log file (Create item) and press the enter key. Then the arrows select the desired disk or partition, after which the application will automatically determine the type of partition table (you can change it manually, but I think you should not do this).

Next, you need to first use the Analysis string (Analyse), and then the quick search (Quick Search). After each action, Enter is pressed. When the orphaned section is found, the structure save clause (Write) should be used. Otherwise, if the desired section is not displayed in the list of search results, you should use Deep Scan (Deeper Search), and then do the steps just described to save the structure. Now, as in the previous version, you just need to restart your computer or laptop. The problem should be gone.

Using Ontrack EasyRecovery

Before us is another program that allows you to convert the RAW format of HDDs. How to fix it with this utility? As easy as pie.

In principle, the application works almost similarly to the TestDisk program, but it can attract many users because it has a beautiful and user-friendly interface. By the way, many experts call this software an indispensable tool when you need to restore large disk partitions. The only negative is that the program is paid, but I think this is not a problem for our person. On the Runet, you can easily find activation keys, patches, and key generators for it.

Conclusion

What is the result? At the moment, the RAW format of HDDs has been considered. How to fix it to be readable by the system, I think, is already clear. As for what exactly to apply, it depends on specific situation. For example, if formatting by your own means is possible, you can display the files and copy them to another location. This, so to speak, is absolutely certain. You can also use the command to check and restore the partition to its original state, which is provided in the system itself, but this process can take a very long time if the volume is large enough.

On the other hand, to simplify user actions, the third party utilities described just above. Another thing is that some users will not accept the DOS interface of the TestDisk application. However, it is easy to get used to it. Moreover, as already mentioned, this is a portable version, which means that you can always have it at hand and run it from the same flash drive. If you do not like it, please use the similar Ontrack EasyRecovery application with a graphical shell. True, some may object to the issue of cost, but here it is worth deciding for yourself what is more important: money or a hard drive with information stored on it? In addition, among all such utilities, these two are the most powerful, and sometimes you can’t wait for a quality result from free software. However, the choice is up to the users themselves.

What is raw markup on hdd, memory card and usb flash drive. How to fix "chkdsk is not valid for raw drives" error and return ntfs.

A fairly common problem: the contents of the memory card or hard drive are inaccessible, Windows (7 - 10) displays the message "chkdsk is not valid for the disk." The file system format is RAW.

What is raw, is it scary and how to fix the error (by returning the NTFS file system) - read here.

What is a "RAW file system"?

When you connect the device to the USB connector, you see in the properties of the file volume information that the flash card has the raw file system type and is not formatted in the standard NTFS or FAT file system.

Windows assigns a RAW label to a volume with an undefined file system. This happens if none of system drivers could not recognize the file system. In the case of Windows, we are talking about FAT (32) and NTFS.

Thus, RAW is not a file system, but a sure sign of a hard drive error.

RAW disk: causes of the error

Most often, RAW markup appears if:

• Not formatted disk, file volume,
• Access to the file system/disk/memory card is denied or restricted,
• There were reading errors, damage to the structure of the file system, bad blocks.

For raw disc there are some symptoms that definitely indicate problems with the disk. Among these symptoms:

• Wrong media type when reading disc
• Windows gives Cancel, Retry, Error window
• The file system in applications is displayed as RAW
• I get the error "chkdsk is not valid for raw disks"
• Windows asks to format the drive
• Filenames contain non-standard characters
• "Sector not found" message appears

When does the error chkdsk is not valid for raw disks occur?

Information about the file system is stored in two places:

1. MBR partition table
2. volumes boot sector

If one of these sectors is damaged or not found, chkdsk gives information that this utility invalid for raw discs.

Why raw markup is bad

If your device has a raw layout, you cannot view its contents, perform file operations. Also, the disk cannot be checked for errors or defragmented.

As a result, the files stored on the disk become inaccessible, although they are still physically there and available for recovery by any recovery program.

Important! If your drive or partition is of the raw file system type, Windows will prompt you to format it with a warning "The drive is not formatted. Do you want to format it?" (Disk not formatted do you want to format it now?).

Don't settle for this: if you format your HDD, you will lose all the data on the raw disk!

How to fix raw without data loss in EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard

You can access the files by fixing the MBR partition Table or converting raw to ntfs format. You can do this without actually losing data and formatting.

Since the raw disk still contains data, let's try to return it (if not completely, then at least the most valuable files).

We need the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard program. How to use it when recovering data from raw - read below.

Step 1: Recover data on a RAW disk or partition

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is a very suitable program:

• To recover data from raw disks,
• If the sd card or flash drive in raw format is not formatted
• To search for deleted hard disk partitions.

The Data Recovery Wizard program is paid when it comes to full-featured use.

Advice. Alternatively, you can try these free apps like Recuva or the ones we offer in [this review].

1. First, download the program from the developer's website:

The program is compatible with Windows 7/8/10, although you can install it on earlier OS versions.

2. Run the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and select the file types to recover in the window that appears (or activate the “All file types” option). Confirm the operation by pressing .

3. If the disk partition is deleted or is defined as RAW in Explorer, use the Lost Disk Drives option.

Select the problem disk with deleted data (Section “Lost disks”) and click the Scan button.

EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard will search for recoverable files on the specified drive or sd card.

4. When the scan is completed, a list of found files will be displayed. Mark the necessary ones and click the Recover button to restore.

Important! Always save files to another drive to avoid overwriting.

Step 2. Convert RAW to NTFS file system without data loss

After restoring the files, the raw disk needs to be formatted in order to be used further for storing files. How to do it right, read.

By the way. Windows OS allows you to format a drive to NTFS using the built-in Diskpart format utility through the command line.

Thus, if you restore data from a raw disk in advance, you can safely return the NTFS partition and format it. If you first format the drive and then try to recover the data, the chances of recovery will be greatly reduced.

If you're unlucky and accidentally formatted a raw partition, losing data on it, use Auslogics program File Recovery (it is useful to read the article at the link).

Other useful programs for raw disk recovery

Apart from EaseUS programs Data Recovery Wizard, you may find other raw partition recovery tools useful.

Test Disk

The free console utility TestDisk allows you to find lost file volumes. This way you can get files back from the raw partition.

You can return ntfs with the TestDisk program as follows:

1. Run the TestDisk utility
2. Select Create → recovery disk → file system type
3. To start the search, select Analyze → Quick Search from the menu
4. Press P to search for files and Write to write the results to a table on disk

Minitool Power Data Recovery

Power Data Recovery has a toolkit for finding deleted/lost partitions: Lost Partition Recovery. With this feature, you can quickly restore a raw partition.

Unlike the console utility TestDisk, power program Data Recovery has a very clear interface. Thanks to this, you can recover files, and then format the problem area of ​​the disk in FAT or NTFS.

HDD Raw Copy

The Hdd Raw Copy program (developer - Toshiba) is designed for low-level and sector-by-sector creation of a disk image. It will be useful when creating a complete copy of a hard drive or SSD. After creating a duplicate disk, you can easily experiment with the RAW partition: restore files on it, format and convert to other file systems.

Besides, HDD utility Raw Copy will be useful for Reserve copy, duplication, data recovery and data migration.

Question answer

The next time you turn on the external HDD on USB, the OS "advised" to format the disk. I checked the controller itself by installing another HDD into it - it works. The problem is in the HDD itself. Please advise what to do.

Answer. If the OS advises you to format the hard drive, there may be a partition table violation. Try to restore the raw disk system using the TestDisk console utility.

Disks with an unmounted file system are indicated by RAW(translated from English. " raw», « raw"). This means that the data standard unknown stored information does not have a clear specification. If one of the disks or partitions is recognized as RAW in Windows, it means that installed drivers was not recognized the name of the file system. In normal mode, this name should be FAT or NTFS.

When you try to enter such a section, it will appear next error.

Or a message that disk is not formatted.

If you go to Administration Control panels, choose Computer management, can see state this disk.

In this case, the system reports that logical drive serviceable, But unknown format.

reasons There can be several occurrences of an unknown RAW format:

• file system structure violated(partial destruction of boot sectors);
• disk not formatted(file system not installed);
• No access.

This may be the result of such actions:

• incorrect installation(reinstallation), OS recovery;
• faulty hard drive sectors (you may have noticed lately a long response time when trying to open a particular directory);
• unstable work PSU or mains voltage drops;
• poor contact of cables and loops connecting the hard drive with the PSU and the motherboard;
• viruses.

Checking for errors

In the event that the disk has not undergone serious damage, and most of the file system structures have survived, you can fix the error using regular means of the system. In this case, the section should not be systemic.

We launch command interpreter with rights administrator.

Exists system utility Checkingdisk, designed specifically for checking the hard drive.

To call it in the console, type chkdsk (drive letter): /f

Confirm checking the specified volume by entering a character Y- will begin searching for and eliminating errors. Upon its completion reboot. A lot of time can be spent on scanning, it depends on the volume of the disk that needs to be repaired. Wait for its completion, because there is a high probability of a successful recovery in this way.

Using Formatting

Carrying out the procedure formatting, Please note that all data will be lost. If the information stored on it was not important to you, go to to start reformatting, as shown earlier.

Right click on the drive and select .

If a lot of necessary data is stored there, then proceed to formatting should be last, trying to restore them by other available means.

Using DMDE to recover without data loss

One of the means is free program DMDE. Download it on the official website. After installation and launch select physical device that contains the RAW partition, while at the bottom check the box Show Sections and press OK.

The disk you need can be found at crossed out icon or type RAW, select it and click Open Volume.

Browse content, if it opens, make sure that the selection was made correctly.

Then press the button Restore And Yes to confirm the recovery of the boot sector from a copy.

Using the TestDisk Utility

Another free program that can restore partitions in case of information corruption is Test Disk. She works more effectively than the previous one, but you will have to tinker with it a little more.

After pressing " Create» (create a new log file) select disk with ROW format.

The disk is selected with cursor keyboards.

Select the Analyze item and the button Enter for confirmation.

Wait for the analysis to complete - the program will find several disks, including the one that contains information in RAW format. To identify it is possible, knowing the volume.

Select P to enter the mode viewing. After making sure that this is exactly the disk you need, click Write for recovery and Y to confirm this action.

Upon completion of the recovery reboot and check if the recovery was successful.

raw format on system partition

If you are restoring a system partition, then it should be borne in mind that after returning the disk to the original format of the OS file system stop loading- required restore loader.

For recovery, you can use the same utilities that were discussed above. Recommended for these purposes, connect the hard drive to another device and perform this procedure from it, or use a special boot disk , containing, for example, Minitool Partition Wizard, Active Partition Recovery Boot Disk or similar specialized facilities.

All kinds of USB drives, whether they are ordinary flash drives or removable memory cards, are prone to errors due to many reasons. Let's say the user needs to use a USB device to install or restore operating system, and the file system of the flash drive is RAW. How to install Windows 7 or another modification, because this format is not recognized? First you need to fix the file system. The following are a few basic techniques that will come in handy in any other cases when, for some reason, such a failure has occurred.

Why does the RAW format appear on the USB device?

The RAW format itself is a kind of "raw" structure, which, due to a failure or error, has replaced FAT32 or NTFS.

The most common situations are related to viruses, power surges, incorrect removal of the device, software failures of the microcontroller and physical damage to the media. As a result, the file system on the drive changes spontaneously, however, issues related to how to remove the RAW file system on a flash drive and restore the information stored on it can be resolved quite simply. First, let's look at the native tools of Windows systems.

How to fix the RAW file system on a flash drive: preliminary steps

In the event of errors, it is impossible to write or read information from the drive, although the flash drive itself can be seen both in the Explorer, and in the section and in the Device Manager.

Before proceeding with the question of how to fix the RAW file system on a flash drive, it is recommended that you first check it with a standard system tool in the form of a CHKDSK disk checker.

To start diagnostics, the command console is launched (cmd in the Run menu), after which the line chkdsk F: / f is written in it, in which the first letter (“F”) is the letter of the USB drive (it can be seen in Explorer) . This command is good because at the end of the check, if the failures on the device were not critical, you can see your flash drive in the standard NTFS format.

Also, the check can be launched when booting from the recovery disk, using the same command console, in which, before entering the above command, you need to write the volume lines (to find out the device letter) and exit, and then use the standard tool.

However, in case of serious damage, the system may display a message stating that the use of this tool is not allowed for RAW discs. How to fix the RAW file system on a flash drive in this case? The easiest way out is formatting.

on a flash drive: how to fix the situation using Windows tools?

To begin with, you can try to perform formatting by calling the right-click menu in the "Explorer" and selecting the line for performing this operation.

When specifying additional parameters, use full formatting rather than a quick one with clearing the table of contents, and still specify the required filesystem-specific type parameters. Then it remains to press the button to start the process and wait for it to finish.

In the event that formatting in this way is not possible, the problem of how to fix the RAW file system on a flash drive can be solved using the disk management section, which is easiest to call with the diskmgmt.msc command in the Run console. Right-clicking on the disk brings up the context menu, where the format string is selected. If the disk is currently inactive, the initialization command is used first, and then formatting is performed.

Troubleshooting with low-level formatting programs

If this does not give an effect, RAW flash drives can be produced using special utilities.

One of the most powerful is the small HDD Low Level Format program, which is shareware, but in test mode it can perform the formatting operation without problems. When the application starts, the button for free continuation (Continue for free) is pressed. In this mode, the only limitation will be the speed of the operation, so you have to be patient.

Next, you need to select your drive, click the continue button and confirm formatting, agreeing with the program warning. At the end of the process, a message will be displayed indicating that the operation is 100 percent complete, and after that it remains to perform a quick format using Windows tools.

Data recovery software

As for data recovery, it is best to use software products like R.Saver, RS FAT Recovery and others.

Depending on the size of the drive, a lot of time may be required. But recovery is guaranteed one hundred percent. Sometimes you can even see the data that has been deleted from the device for a very long time.

What else do you need to know?

If for some reason the above methods do not help, it is very likely that the problem is a malfunction of the microcontroller. You can try to reflash it using the VEN and DEV identifiers from the "Hardware ID" section in the "Device Manager" properties menu and download the appropriate firmware from the hardware manufacturer's resource. If errors occur due to physical damage, the problem device can in most cases be discarded.

Finally, it remains to be added that the issues of virus exposure, which can also lead to such failures, were not considered here, since each user must take care of protecting his system on his own and without reminders. And before restoring a USB drive, it is advisable to check for viruses without fail.