How to remove the raw system. RAW file system on disk

Recently I encountered a situation where my old external USB disk stopped being read in Windows, being defined as RAW. This indicates that Windows cannot determine the file system structure present on the disk. The reason why a partition is defined as RAW can be different: the disk may not be partitioned, the partition table header may be erased/damaged/missing, the disk may have bad sectors or take place physical problems with the disk itself or its controller.

From the user's point of view, such a RAW disk is displayed in Explorer, but its size is defined as 0 (zero). When you try to open or read data from a RAW partition, various errors type:

To use a disk in the E: drive, first format it. Do you want to format it?

You need to format the disk in Drive E: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?

No access to E:\. File system volume is not recognized.

Cannot Access Disk. The volume does not contain a recognized file system.

Note. We deliberately do not consider the option of physical disk damage, since software there is no cure for this. General recommendation: It is advisable to first check the disk using any S.M.A.R.T status viewing utility.

As a rule, the easiest way to restore disk functionality is to delete the current RAW partition and recreate it with formatting. But the data will naturally be lost, which may be categorically unacceptable. Let's try to run a disk check using standard utility CHKDSK check:

The utility returned that CHKDSK cannot be performed on RAW disks.

The type of the file system is RAW.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

To restore the original file system on a RAW disk without formatting, we will use the free console utility TestDisk.

Download, unpack the archive with the utility and run exe in mode NoLog
Find a disk whose file system is defined as RAW and select Proceed
Next, you need to select the type of disk partition table. As a rule, it is determined automatically as Intel for MBR partitions or EFI GPT For GPT tables. However, in some cases you need to select None
To start analyzing the disk data structure, select Analyze, and on the next screen Quick Search
The TestDisk utility will display a list of found partitions. Using the key P you can display a list of files on the found partition (Q - exit viewing mode), if the partition also has a P label (partition is selected green) – such a partition will be restored. Label D – removed. To change the label, use the left/right arrows on your keyboard.
Advice. Enough useful functions file viewing mode on the file system - the ability to restore individual folders/files to another drive. To do this, in viewing mode, press the key C.
Once all partitions are marked for recovery, click Enter And Write(here be careful not to overwrite the partition table with garbage). If you need to perform a more in-depth analysis of the disk, select DeepSearch.
Advice. Keep in mind that if you restore a system disk in this way, in addition to the partition with Windows itself, depending on the OS version, there may be other partitions: a partition with a bootloader, a partition with a recovery environment, etc. To understand the structure Windows partitions I recommend that you read the articles. If the boot sector of the disk is damaged, the TestDisk utility will offer to try to restore it using the option RebuildB.S..
After this (a reboot may be required), the utility will restore the original partition table and file system structure (usually NTFS or FAT32) on the RAW disk and you will be able to access the files stored on it.

One of the problems faced Windows users 10, 8 and Windows 7 - hard drive (HDD and SSD) or disk partition with the RAW file system. This is usually accompanied by the messages “To use the disk, first format it” and “The volume file system is not recognized”, and when you try to scan such a disk with standard using Windows you will see the message "CHKDSK is not valid for RAW disks».

Format RAW disk- this is a kind of “lack of format”, or rather a file system on the disk: this happens with new or faulty hard drives, and in situations where, for no reason at all, the disk became RAW format- more often due to system failures, improper shutdown of the computer or power problems, while in the latter case the information on the disk usually remains intact.

This instruction provides details on how to fix a disk with the RAW file system in different situations: When there is data on it, the system needs to restore the previous file system from RAW, or when there is no important data on the HDD or SSD and formatting the disk is not a problem.

Checking the disk for errors and fixing file system errors

This option is the first thing to try in all cases where a RAW partition or disk appears. It does not always work, but it is safe and applicable both in cases where a problem has arisen with a disk or data partition, and in cases where the RAW disk is a system disk with Windows and the OS does not boot.

In case the operating system is running, just follow these steps

Run Command Prompt as an administrator (in Windows 10 and 8 this is easiest to do through the Win+X menu, which can also be called by right-clicking on the Start button).
Enter the command chkdsk d: /f and press Enter (in this command, d: is the letter of the RAW drive that needs to be corrected).

After this, two scenarios are possible: if the disk has become RAW due to a simple file system failure, a scan will begin and with a high probability you will see your disk in in the required format(usually NTFS) upon completion. If the matter is more serious, the command will display “CHKDSK is not valid for RAW disks.” It means that this method is not suitable for disk recovery.

In situations where the operating system will not start, you can use the disk Windows recovery 10, 8 or Windows 7 or operating system distribution, e.g. bootable USB flash drive(I’ll give an example for the second case):

We boot from the distribution kit (its bitness must match the bitness of the installed OS).
Next, either on the screen after selecting the language at the bottom left, select “System Restore” and then open the Command Prompt, or simply press Shift+F10 to open it (on some laptops Shift+Fn+F10).
IN command line use the commands in order
diskpart
list volume(as a result of executing this command, we look at which letter in currently there is a problem disk, or, more precisely, a partition, since this letter may differ from the one that was in the working system).
exit
chkdsk d: /f(where d: is the letter of the problem drive, which we found out in step 5).

Here the possible scenarios are the same as those described earlier: either everything will be fixed and after a reboot the system will start as usual, or you will see a message stating that you cannot use chkdsk with a RAW disk, then look at the following methods.

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

The first case is the simplest: it is suitable in situations where you see the RAW file system on a newly purchased disk (this is normal) or if an existing disk or partition on it has this file system, but does not have important data, that is, restore the previous one No disk format required.

In such a scenario, we can simply format this drive or partition standard means Windows (essentially, you can just agree to the formatting prompt in Explorer "To use the drive, format it first)

If for some reason you cannot format the disk in this way, try also by right-clicking on the RAW partition (disk), first “Delete volume”, and then click on the area of the disk that is not allocated and “Create a simple volume”. The Volume Creation Wizard will prompt you to specify a drive letter and format it with the desired file system.

Note: all methods for restoring a RAW partition or disk use the partition structure shown in the screenshot below: system GPT disk with Windows 10, bootable EFI partition, the recovery environment, the system partition, and the E: partition, which is defined as having a RAW file system (this information will hopefully help you better understand the steps below).

Recovering an NTFS partition from RAW to DMDE

It’s much more unpleasant if the disk that became RAW contained important data and you need to not only format it, but return the partition with this data.

In this situation, first I recommend trying a free program for data recovery and lost partitions (and not only for this) DMDE, the official website of which is dmde.ru(V this manual version used GUI programs for Windows).

The process of restoring a partition from RAW in a program will generally consist of the following steps:

Note: in my experiments, when fixing a RAW disk in Windows 10 (UEFI + GPT) using DMDE, immediately after the procedure the system reported disk errors (and the problem disk was accessible and contained all the data that was on it before) and suggested rebooting computer to fix them. After rebooting everything worked fine.

In case you are using DMDE to fix system disk(for example, by connecting it to another computer), keep in mind that the following scenario is possible as a result: the RAW disk will return the original file system, but when you connect it to your “native” computer or laptop, the OS will not boot.

Recovering a RAW disk in TestDisk

Another way effective search and recovering a disk partition from RAW - free TestDisk program. It is more difficult to use than the previous option, but sometimes turns out to be more effective.

Attention: Only undertake what is described below if you understand what you are doing, and even then be prepared for the possibility that something will go wrong. Save important data to physical disk, different from the one on which the actions are performed. Also stock up on a Windows recovery disk or a distribution kit with the OS (you may need to restore the bootloader, for which I provided instructions above, especially if the disk is GPT, even in cases where it is not the system partition that is being restored).

If everything went well, correct structure partitions will be written, and after restarting the computer, the disk will be accessible as before. However, as mentioned above, you may need to restore the bootloader, it works fine in Windows 10 automatic recovery when booting into the recovery environment.

RAW file system on Windows system partition

In cases where the file system problem has occurred on a partition with Windows 10, 8 or Windows 7, and a simple chkdsk in the recovery environment does not work, you can either connect this drive to another computer with a working system and fix the problem on it, or use LiveCD with tools for recovering partitions on disks.

A list of LiveCDs containing TestDisk is available here: http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Livecd
To restore from RAW using DMDE, you can extract the program files to a bootable USB flash drive based on WinPE and, after booting from it, run executable file programs. The official website of the program also has instructions for creating boot drives DOS.

There are also third-party LiveCDs specifically designed for partition recovery. However, in my tests, only the paid Active turned out to be workable for RAW sections. Partition Recovery Boot Disk, all others only allow you to restore files, or find only those partitions that were deleted (unallocated space on the disk), ignoring RAW sections(this is how the Partition Recovery function works in bootable version Minitool Partition Wizard).

At the same time, the Active Partition Recovery boot disk (if you decide to use it) may work with some features:

Sometimes it shows a RAW disk as a regular NTFS, displaying all the files on it, and refuses to restore it (Recover menu item), reporting that the partition is already present on the disk.
If what is described in the first paragraph does not happen, then after recovery using the specified menu item, the disk is displayed as NTFS in Partition Recovery, but remains RAW in Windows.

Another menu item solves the problem - Fix Boot Sector, even if we are not talking about the system partition (in the next window after selecting of this paragraph usually no action is required). In this case, the file system of the partition begins to be perceived by the OS, but problems with the bootloader are possible (solved by standard Windows recovery tools), as well as forced start disk checks by the system at first start.

And finally, if it happens that none of the methods could help you, or the proposed options seem frighteningly complicated, it is almost always possible to simply recover important data from RAW partitions and disks, they will help free programs for data recovery.

Generally speaking, there is no RAW file system. In the Windows operating system, RAW means that the file system type was simply not determined correctly. This can happen for various reasons:

because the disk is not formatted;
the disk is faulty or its file system is damaged;
Correct disk access is not defined.

In this case, the operating system reports a corresponding error and offers to reformat the disk again. Of course, all data on it will be lost.

Naturally, this raises the question: if the flash drive has a raw file system, how can I correct the situation? And you can do this like regular means Windows OS itself, and using third party utilities.

Restoring the file system using Windows

call the command line using the keyboard shortcut - ;
In the window that opens, type the command: cmd;
The management console will open, where you will need to type the command: CHKDSK /F. The name of the disc may be different. For example: /C, /A, /I, etc.

A special utility program will launch, which will not only check the disk partitions for errors, but also try to eliminate them.

You may also need to restart your computer before scanning.

After the program has completed its work, you will need to call another one to scan errors in real time:

the management console is called as described above;
enter the command: sfc /scannow.

So the problem can be solved: if the hard drive is raw how to fix it?

Restoring a file system using utilities

Restoring the file system of a flash drive without losing data is also possible using third-party utilities. They have various additional functionality and differ in the organization of the interface, but their common purpose is the same: to restore a damaged disk file system, but without losing a single bit of data.

Here are just a few of these programs:

RS Partition Recovery;
Mini Tool Power Data Recovery;
Test Disk ( this utility does not work with file names written in Cyrillic);
Win Hex;
Get Data Back for FAT/NTFS (only for FAT systems and NTFS).

There are situations in which a user may lose access to their hard drive(or its separate partition), while the file system of this disk(or its problematic section) will begin to be defined as “Raw". Such a hard drive may contain data that the user needs and needs to access (often at any cost). In this material I will try to help the user who finds himself in such a situation, I will explain how to fix it RAW format HDD drives , and will also tell you about the tools that will help us with this.

To understand what “RAW HDD format” means, you need to refer to the translation of the word “RAW” itself. Translated from English, the word “raw” means "raw, unprocessed". Accordingly, this term refers to disks on which either no file system is installed at all (the disk is not formatted), or their file system is damaged for some reason (the structure of the MFT file table is broken, incorrect table data MBR partitions and so on).

Initially, the term RAW denoted the default file system when working with CD-ROMs. Blank disks files being prepared for recording were identified by the system as using the RAW "file system".

Illustration RAW format - HDD disk

Nowadays everyone HDD that is not formatted in an NT file system format (such as FAT or NTFS) has the status hard drive"RAW". Check out the most effective ones.

Reasons for the RAW status of a hard drive

To understand how to fix the RAW format of HDD disks, you need to understand the list of reasons that cause it. I would note the following determinants:

Power surges;
Problems with the hard drive cable (the cable is damaged, bad contact cable with hard drive and so on);
PC problems;
Bad sectors on the hard drive (especially noticeable when accessing the hard drive, when it responds slowly);
Damage to the file system structure or damage to the partition table;
Incorrect reinstallation or ;
Activities of various virus programs.

So, we have identified a list of reasons, causing the appearance RAW status of the hard drive. Now let's decide how to fix the RAW format of HDD drives.

RAW format of HDD drives - how to fix

So, how to get rid of RAW format HDD drives? I suggest doing the following:

Use the capabilities of the system CHKDSK utilities . If RAW status appears on one of the hard drive partitions, and you have access to the command line (or are using a live build on a CD (DVD) or flash drive), then run the command line as an administrator, in which type:

chkdsk X: /f (where X is the letter of the problematic drive)

After this check, usually the problem with RAW will be resolved, and you will get your working disk back.

If you have a boot disk or flash drive, then boot from them, select the “System Restore” menu option, go to “ Extra options", then "Command Prompt", and there enter the above command. Make sure you select correct letter to indicate the desired section. To do this, type the following commands one after another:

dispart

list volume- (this allows us to find out the letter of the drive we need)

exit

You can also connect your hard drive to another PC and run the CHKDSK command from it;

Use third party apps

Regarding the issue of eliminating the RAW format on HDD drives We can also be helped by various auxiliary programs(for example, MiniTool Power Data Recovery or TestDisk).

The first of the programs mentioned will allow us to recover the necessary data located on the RAW disk.
Download MiniTool Power Data Recovery (link just above), click on “Lost Partition Recovery” in the main window.
Select the RAW disk and scan it by clicking on “Full Scan”.
Then decide on the partition and files that need to be restored, click on “Save”, indicating the path where you want to save the recovered files.

To take advantage TestDisk utility download it, run as administrator.

Select “Create” and press enter, then use the arrows to select the problem disk and press enter again.
Then decide on the right type partition tables (the utility will do this automatically) and press “Enter”.
Look for problematic or lost sections by selecting “Analyze” and then “Quick Search”.
After the utility finds required volumes, select “Write” to save the resulting partition structure.

Video instruction

Above I stated the answer to the question about the RAW format of HDD drives, and indicated the reasons appearance of RAW-disks and describes tools to solve this problem. In most cases, the appearance of such a format on your disk can indicate both hardware and software problems on a PC, which I described in the list of reasons for this dysfunction (except for the situation when the disk is new and not formatted). To solve the problem, I recommend following the list of tips I suggested above, this will help to effectively fix RAW problem HDD format on your computer.

In contact with

If a computer could be turned off like a pocket calculator, smart engineers and software developers would have realized this possibility a long time ago. Perhaps this will be the case in the future, but for now it is necessary to shut down the PC using appropriate means operating system, otherwise troubles cannot be avoided. Changing the file system NTFS V RAW- just one of the troubles that can lead to sudden shutdown computer.

As a rule, a partition with such a file system is detected by Windows, but no information about the data written to it is provided, as if it doesn’t exist; the filling progress bar is not displayed in Explorer. When you try to open a section, you get a message thorny mistake "Can't access X:/. Reading is impossible, the disk is not formatted" or something like that.

Changing the partition letter or launching a utility to check the disk from its properties is also impossible. Only formatting is possible but do not rush to do this, otherwise all your files will be deleted.

If NTFS "turns" into RAW on the system partition, when you turn on the computer, a boot error appears, most often « Operating System not found» or "Reboot and select proper boot device".

What is the RAW file system

No matter how strange it may sound, RAW just means the absence of a file system as such. More precise definition RAW is chaos, disorder of data on the disk. The error occurs when the file driver Windows systems Its type cannot be determined. There may be several reasons for this, but the most likely is damage in the main file table area MFT, boot sector , as well as incorrect geometry values logical partition in the partition table. Unformatted volumes can also be of the RAW type.

Recovering RAW volumes

The success of error treatment depends on the nature and extent of damage to the data responsible for determining Windows type file system. Universal method There is no solution to the problem, but in most cases restore normal reading NTFS the built-in utility, launched with the parameter, helps /f from the command line. In other cases, specialized volume recovery programs help, for example, TestDisk.

If your user data partition has become unreadable due to the appearance of RAW, you can reconstruct it from RAW to NTFS from a running operating system.

To do this, in a command line running as administrator, you need to run chkdsk command D: /f and wait full check disk.

In case of damage system partition It is advisable to connect the hard drive to another computer and check it, but you can also use any boot disk with Windows, not forgetting, however, that the partition letters in the recovery environment will be different. For example, logical drive C will have a letter D .

If the reason for the appearance of RAW is minor damage to the file table MFT, most likely, the system can be restored even after the errors are corrected by the utility it will load into normal mode. If to incorrect entries MFT bootloader damage will be added, it is also worth executing the following recovery commands in the console:

bootrec.exe /FixMbr
bootrec.exe /FixBoot

Note: This boot recovery method may not work for computers running in UEFI.

In some cases, it may be necessary to reinstall the operating system or restore it from backup copy. As for user files on non-system RAW volumes, they usually remain intact and are perfectly readable after reconstruction in NTFS. However, there is a risk of accidental data corruption when reconstructing RAW with the utility or other programs are still available.

Therefore, if the data is of particular value, before attempting to fix the underlying error, try restoring the data using specialized programs like R-Studio. Experience shows that they cope excellently with such tasks, restoring files even from severely damaged volumes. After this, you can simply format the problematic partition and transfer the recovered data to it.