A number of times users see a prompt, asking to format the drive in order to open it. Most of the computer users are aware of this issue. A number of times such message appears for RAW partitioned drives. Most users face this issue while trying to access the drive. It is necessary to convert RAW to NTFS file system in order to access the drive.
The popup asks to format your drive to open or gives you a way back to the previous window. This is among some of the most annoying issues on the computer. As mentioned earlier, you can gain access to the drive only after you format it. But formatting results in deletion of all the important data stored in the drive. It can be a pain even if you know how data is recovered from hard disk that turned RAW on Windows 10, Windows 8, 8.1, Windows 7, Vista, XP, Windows Server 2003 and 2008, and on all versions of macOS including High Sierra, Sierra, El Capitan, Yosemite, Mountain Lion, etc.
The format disk window will show no space at all in your disk. You will see 0 bytes free and used space on your disk. But the most important issue to address would be the safety of your important data. Here is how you can convert RAW to NTFS without data loss.
Check Issue
If you run the CHKDSK command, you might counter an error from the disk. The message states ‘The type of file system is RAW, CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives’. This indicates that the drive has a RAW file system and needs to be formatted to get access.
However, it depends upon the operating system and versions about the file system recognition. In such cases, either the OS shows the drive as without partition or a RAW partition.
Convert RAW File System to NTFS
The situation with the RAW file system is due to a number of issues from corruption to hardware failure. Sometimes it appears due to IO errors and compatibility issues. When such situation arises, the system finds disk as unreadable and denies access to them. The amount of recovery depends upon the level of corruption and in grave situations, you can’t recover data. However, most of the time, corruption affects a small sector of the drive and all the data can be successfully recovered.
Here are the Steps to convert drives from RAW to NTFS without Data Loss
Convert Through Computer Management
Go to Run – Press Windows + R
Type compmgmt.msc and press Enter
Go to Computer Management (local) in computer management window
Click on Storage
Click Disk management
Select the drive and click Actions
Select Rescan Disk
Once this is done, you can check the disk by restarting the computer. If the disk is clean, you may get access to the drive otherwise, keep the troubleshooting on with the following steps:
Use Command Prompt
You can convert a Raw drive to NTFS with command prompt easily. This is done using utility that is built in Windows called DiskPart in order to clean bad sectors and get access to the data the in drive. You can convert the drive to NTFS from RAW and gain access using the command prompt.
Go to Start and type cmd.
Run command prompt as Administrator – Right click on the cmd and click run as administrator.
Type Diskpart and enter.
Type rescan and enter.
You can check the status of repair by restarting your computer. Check the drive after a restart, if you get access to the drive, its repaired. If the computer refuses access to the particular drive, follow this troubleshooting to do it.
Use System Recovery
You can convert the RAW file system to NTFS on your drive using system recovery options. Go to the system recovery options windows to convert:
Run the check disk using system recovery options with F and R parameters
The system recovery options come with a number of recovery parameters.
Select Startup repair from recovery options window
Navigate to the recovery options
Connect an external drive USB, Hard drive etc.
Open Command prompt from recovery options window and type Notepad
Locate D drive
Copy and paste your files to the external drive
Close cmd
Open the command prompt and type chkdsk/f/r, and press enter.
This will finish up the conversion process. In order to check the success of your conversion, restart the computer. Open the drive after a proper reboot and try to get access to the drive. As soon as you enter the drive, make sure to backup all the data on your hard drive. This helps in securing your data and helps in repairing important files if they are unplayable.
