I have been bothered by this problem for a couple of days! Please, help me out! My external hard drive strangely becomes RAW and all the inner contained pictures, films and documents also become inaccessible. Every time I attempt to open it, it would ask me to format it at first. But, considering about the safety of inner data, I cannot just format it as the computer asks. So, do you know what should I do? What’s the best way to access my data without the formatting process? Do you have any idea? Thank you in advance!
If it says raw either it is raw or there is an issue when it mounts on the pc. If you actually have data on there then try mounting it till you get the proper file system and then run a chkdsk /f
Have you formatted this external hard drive? In fact, as I know, the RAW hard drive problems are often caused by many reasons, such as the improper operations, virus infections and even hard drive problems, etc. But, in most cases, it can be easily fixed by re-formatting. So, you also can try to format this RAW partition to fix its RAW problems. However, considering about the safety of the inner stored files, you’d better firstly try to retrieve them back off from this RAW drive with a RAW drive data recovery program in case that the formatting process makes everything worse. Nowadays, there are many similar hard drive data recovery programs that can help you retrieve your inaccessible data off from this RAW drive and restore your RAW file system back into previous NTFS file system latter. But not all of them can work as efficiently as you hope. So, if you cannot make your own decision, you can try to use some RAW drive data recovery freeware at firstly, which often work much more efficiently than some paid ones, such as 4Card Recovery, TestDisk, Recuva and iCare Data Recovery Free, etc. Note: Do not forget to format this drive after the data recovery process and see whether the RAW problem can be completely fixed. Next time, I hope you can always remember to back up everything important.