How to Recover Data from RAW File System, Partition and

Hard Drive Efficiently

Content:

Brief Introduction to RAW Hard Drive

RAW Hard Drive – the Whole Disk Is RAW

RAW Partition – Only One Partition Is Inaccessible

Possible Causes for a Hard Drive to Become RAW

Possible Causes for a Partition to Become RAW

3 Ways to Recover Data from RAW Hard Drive

3 Ways to Get Back Missing Data from RAW Partition

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Users Comments

Brief Introduction to RAW Hard Drive

What’s RAW? To be specific, RAW is the default file system of CD-ROM recognized by

Windows. In DVD burning methods, there is a RAW mode referring to burn after reading

the complete sector data. It can extract not only users’ data, but also data of sub-channels.

However, not all burners give support for RAW mode.

Literally, the hard drive which has not been formatted by NT file system, such as FAT and

NTFS, is called RAW hard drive. However, from this perspective, nothing should be

included in a RAW hard drive because no drive can be put into use for saving data before

it is actually formatted.

Then, why are there so many questions related to how to recover data from RAW hard

drive? In fact, that is because a hard drive can turn into RAW after suffering from

problems like virus attack and improper operation.

RAW hard drive problem includes two situations. One is that the whole hard drive has

become RAW; the other is one partition of a hard drive turns into RAW.

RAW Hard Drive – the Whole Disk Is RAW

If the operating system you are running now can’t recognize the file system of your hard

drive at certain moment, the state of hard drive becomes RAW. At this time, no one is

allowed to access any part of the hard drive. Meanwhile, its capacity, used space and

unused space will all be shown as “zero”. That is to say, all data originally saved in that

“RAW” disk are lost. You can neither see them nor transfer them to safe place for further

use. What a tragedy it will be if it includes files of great importance.

It is worth noting that both internal hard drive and external hard drive can become RAW

because of inappropriate operation or virus invasion.

RAW Partition – Only One Partition Is Inaccessible

When damage is only brought to one partition on a hard drive, you’ll find except for this

partition, whose file system is RAW now, other partitions are in normal state. You click on

the drive and an error message – “The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable” or

“You need to format the disk” – will pop up to show that this drive is not accessible.

In this case, choosing to format the drive will help you enter it successfully. However, the

formatting will do harm to data in it and possibly all data will be gone because of that. So

quit the idea of formatting the RAW partition to make it work properly since this will be

done at the cost of losing useful data.

Possible Causes for a Hard Drive to Become RAW

In general, the cause for a result can be various. For instance, you are late for work today.

The result is that you are late, but the reason is not clear. Traffic jam, illness, emergency

and a lot of other things could be the reason why you didn’t arrive at the workplace on time.

Likewise, the state of a hard drive could turn into RAW due to different factors. Now, we’re

on the way to sum up the common reasons and write them down.

1.Hard disk drive cable problem: in rare cases, a hard drive may be shown as RAW in

computer because of cable issues. For instance, when the cable is broken, hard drive

can’t be listed in computer with normal state. In addition, if the interface of an external

hard drive has bad contact, we get no chance to see it listing in computer.

2.Bad sectors: if you click on the letter of hard drive, only to find the responding speed is

very slow, it means that there are bad sectors in the key area of hard drive. Under this

circumstance, professional tool is required to mirror the hard drive. We are supposed to

carry out data recovery only when this step has been done for security consideration.

3.File system structural damage: if the RAW problems occur without an obvious sign or

reason, users need to analyze the causes manually. If users are not proficient in such

work, they can resort to professional tools like WINHEX.

4.Partition table damage: no matter what the reason is, once the partition table of the hard

drive has been damaged, the whole hard drive will become RAW. The OS can only

identify different partitions with the help of partition table, which records the size, location,

type and other information of every partition in disk.

5.Reinstallation or restoration of operating system: users may choose to reinstall the OS

they are running now or restore it to the initial state for different reasons.

Reasons for reinstalling an OS can be mainly divided into two types. One is that after an

operating system has been used for a relatively long time, the responding speed will be

decreased, of course. That’s a normal thing. But in order to achieve faster speed as well

as better performance, users can install the current system once again or choose to

replace the old OS with a new one. The other is that users want to change the current OS

to the latest one to gain better user experience.

The commonest reason why users are eager to restore the operating system is that there

are some problems showing in hard disk and they are out of the users’ control. In this case,

restoring OS to the initial good state is the best way many individual users can think of to

solve the current problem. Another reason for doing so is also to approach faster running

speed.

6.Virus attack: computer viruses are widespread throughout the world. They should be

responsible for many undesired problems, such as documents loss, photo missing,

partition loss, system crash and file system crash. The hard drive will be turned into RAW

state after viruses have attacked the hard drive and changed/deleted some vital

parameters and information.

Possible Causes for a Partition to Become RAW

Users may see the following errors when they are trying to getting access to a hard drive

partition so as to make use of data in it.

“The disk in drive F: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?”

“You need to format the disk in drive D: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?”

“This volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all

required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted.”

Please don’t format the partition as the prompt suggested you to do and there’s no need

for being freaked out when above errors show up. You need to calm down and do the best

you can to try to recover data from RAW hard drive. However, before taking actions to get

back missing data, we’d better have an overall analysis of the probable reasons leading to

RAW trouble.

1.Virus invasion: if part of the hard drive partition table with partition information like

partition starting position and ending position has been damaged or corrupted because of

being infected by computer viruses, the corresponding partition will be given a RAW file

system.

2.System reinstallation: if the current system partition is formatted with FAT, but it is

changed to NTFS when we replace the old operating system with a new one, you may find

the file system of system partition can’t be recognized by OS anymore.

3.Number of hard drives and partitions: the fact that too many hard drives and partitions

have been used in one computer simultaneously will probably bring RAW partition issue

as well.

To sum up, the reasons for a partition to become RAW differ and we can hardly know the

accurate cause of it. All we need to and can do is sparing no effort to try to figure out the

real reason.

Note: sometimes, we may find a partition in the Windows Disk Management without a file

system type (rather than with a RAW file system). Actually, both cases are similar to each

other and timely damaged drive data recovery should be carried out to minimize or even

eliminate losses.

3 Ways to Recover Data from RAW Hard Drive

You must stay calm even if the whole hard drive becomes RAW. You need to know two

things:

It’s no use wasting time on regret.

A worried mood can’t help you make the right decision on what to do next.

Instead, you may organize an analysis of hard drive properties. Remember, don’t rush to

restore or install the OS since it is not helpful at all for you to recover data from RAW hard

drive. In addition, it will make things worse and this is a result no one is willing to see.

Therefore, you should choose one of the following ways to complete damaged drive data

recovery step by step.

The first way: call the system built-in fix program after discovering RAW problem ->

download practical tool to repair the hard disk boot record -> rebuild hard disk partition

table with special tool -> recover data from RAW hard drive by employing professional

data recovery tool (MiniTool Power Data Recovery is a good choice even for green

hands).

The second way: make use of the powerful tool – WINHEX. The installation way will not

be introduced here. Recovery process is roughly: choose the RAW hard drive -> scan for

lost partitions -> open found partitions -> select the files that can be and need to be

recovered -> set a location to store files.

The third way: install and run MiniTool Power Data Recovery -> choose “Lost Partition

Recovery” from main window -> choose the RAW hard drive and scan it -> select a

partition to recover files from it (this step can be carried out repeatedly to get back missing

data from different partitions).

3 Ways to Get Back Missing Data from RAW Partition

There are also several ways that can be adopted for damaged drive data recovery.

The first way: right click on RAW partition and choose property -> select security settings

-> delete useless users and messy codes -> add a local user.

The second way: click “Management Tool” from “Action Panel” -> find “Local Security

Policy” and “Security Settings” respectively -> find the sharing and security model for local

accounts -> change guest only to classic.

The third way: install and run MiniTool Power Data Recovery -> choose “Damaged

Partition Recovery” from main window -> full scan RAW partition -> select a partition to

enter -> check needed files and recover (the appointed storage location for recovered

data can’t be the original RAW partition).

Whether you want to recover data from RAW hard drive or just a RAW partition, you will

need the help of MiniTool Power Data Recovery Boot Disk as long as the system is

crashed and can’t be started as usual. The main functions of that boot disk are basically

the same to that of the normal software edition. The only difference lies in that the boot

disk doesn’t provide “CD/DVD Recovery” module. For more information about how to use

the boot disk, you can visit the related pages on our website. Hope you can solve the

RAW hard drive problem without any obstacle.

This is the end of introducing ways to recover data from RAW hard drive. After reading

above article, you must have noticed that lots of factors can lead to the hard drive RAW

problem. To avoid bringing secondary damage to data in RAW drive, we strongly advise

you to analyze the possible causes carefully with WINHEX before taking measures to try

to recover missing data from it if it is feasible.

Tips: though the damaged drive data recovery can be finished completely sometimes, it is

still advisable for all users to back up important data regularly. In this way, they can get rid

of the terrible feeling of being worrying about losing valuable data permanently. What’s

more, just by resorting to the backups directly, all of us can get back missing data quickly

and easily. In a word, data backup is a very important way to protect significant data. We

all should form the habit of making backups at fixed periods to avoid annoying losses as

much as possible.