Summary:
If your USB is showing RAW, it means that the drive might be corrupted. USB drives becomes inaccessible when it turns RAW and recovering data from inaccessible RAW drive is incredibly challenging. With the right approaches mentioned in this article you can easily repair and recover RAW data from USB drives.
Quick Navigation
What is RAW USB Drive?
Signs of RAW USB Drive
How to Repair USB Flash Drive Showing RAW File System?
Recover Data From RAW USB Drive
FAQ
What is a RAW USB Drive?
RAW file system in USB indicates that the drive you are using has no file system or the file system is unknown by the OS of your computer. Therefore, when file system is unknown, it becomes hard for the OS to read the data from the USB drive. Any drive or disk with RAW file system is called as RAW disk or RAW drive.
However, it becomes equally important to reformat the drive with file system to access any data saved on the drive. If you have already formatted the drive to fix the RAW file system and lost all your precious data, do not worry! Next sections of the article cover solutions to recover data from formatted drives too.
Signs of RAW USB drive
When your USB turns RAW, the drive doesn’t display RAW drive on the screen. You can find out whether the file system of a flash drive is in RAW format by right-clicking on it and selecting Properties. If you click on the Options tab, you will see that the memory space is 0 bytes if it is RAW.
Also, you will be receiving various error messages that indicates the USB drive is RAW. Here are some of the errors displayed when USB turns RAW.
- Disk is not formatted; do you want to format?
- Your drive needs to be formatted
- Error: Unknown file system
- Drive has invalid file system
These are the few indications or error messages that pops up when the USB drive is RAW and you connect your USB to your computer. Every time the computer displays these errors, it becomes obligatory to format your USB drive. But, formatting the drive will surely erase all the data from the RAW drive. Therefore, it is recommended to recover data from USB drive before you head into any fixing methods.
How to Repair USB Flash Drive Showing RAW File System?
Fix 1: Fix a RAW USB Drive Using CHKDSK
This is one of the fixes that doesn’t involve formatting. If your USB drive letter is listed on your computer, File Explorer or in Disk Management, the drive is been detected by the computer. you can use the command to check and repair the storage device. Running CHKDSK can hopefully fix the RAW USB drive issue, however, it can also result in data loss.
Step 1. Connect your USB to your computer.
Step 2. In a search options type cmd -> right-click Command Prompt -> Run as administrator
Step 3. Enter chkdsk D: /f/r (H is the drive letter of your RAW drive) and press Enter to fix your RAW USB.
After completing repair process, check if your USB drive is repaired. If CHKDSK is not working, consider formatting your drive. Make sure you recover your data before formatting the drive as it involves data loss situations. If you have already recovered data, you can go ahead and format the drive.
Fix 2: Fix RAW USB Drive by Checking the Device
Error checking tool is a built-in Windows feature that can help you check the drive for file system errors.
Step 1. Connect your USB drive to your computer.
Step 2. Go to This PC >> right-click your USB and choose Properties
Step 3. Click the Tools tab >> then click Check
Step 4. In the Error Checking window, choose Scan and repair drive and wait for the process to finish.
Fix 2: Fix a RAW USB Drive by Formatting it with new File System
To format the RAW USB drive to another file system, connect the RAW USB, SD card, pen drive to your PC.
Step 1: Open This PC or My computer -> Right-click on the RAW USB flash drive or pen drive -> select Format.
Step 2: Now, reset file system by renaming the USB drive, and then click OK to repair the RAW USB drive to NTFS/FAT32.
After following these steps, the drive will be reusable again. If you have formatted the drive before taking the backup, do not worry! You can still recover files from formatted drives using SFWare Data Recovery Software.
SFWare Data recovery software, can easily recover data from RAW USB drive. the tool is designed with a robust scanning algorithm, that searches each sector of the drive recover inaccessible data. With SFWare you can recover data from any flash drives, pen drives including, Transcend, SanDisk, Kingston, HP, Lexar, etc., with ease.
How to Recover files from RAW USB drives?
To recover data from RAW USB drives or formatted RAW USB drives, all you need to do is, download and install the SFWare USB Data Recovery Software on your system. Launch the application. You need to connect the RAW USB drive to the computer in which software has been installed to continue with the recovery process.
Step 1: From the main screen, select Recover Drive/Partition option then, select Drive/Partition Recovery.
Step 2: In the next screen, you will be able to see all the available drives including external hard drive connected to your system. Choose the drive that represents USB drive and click on Next option.
Step 3: The scanning process initiates and after scanning completes, you will be able to see the recoverable files in Data View or File Type View.
After completion of recovery process, preview recovered files and Save them in any location of your choice.
Conclusion:
USB drives turning RAW is the most common error you see on drives. Hopefully, the above-mentioned methods, help you fix the RAW drive and recover your data without any damage. To keep your data safe from any data loss, it is always rewarding to keep back up of your USB drive.
