AOMEI FastRecovery
[Stepwise] How to Fix RAW Flash Drive Using CMD
Here is a comprehensive guide about how to fix RAW flash drive using CMD. In this passage, you can learn to fix RAW hard drive without formatting and recover lost data.
By Irene / Updated on August 26, 2024
There are many factores that can make a USB drive become RAW. When a drive has bad sectors, partition damage, or bad use (like when it is ejected incorrectly), it becomes RAW all of a sudden. In this case, a "RAW" drive means that you can't get to the info on it. RAW means that the drive doesn't use a file system that works with the computer. In order to fix it, you usually need to change it to NTFS or FAT32.
This piece tells you two good ways to fix a RAW drive: using CMD and other commands that work instead of CMD. That being said, you should save the files on a RAW USB drive before you use CMD to fix it. It says on the warning that you should format and back up the USB drive before you use it. Your info will be erased after formatting. AOMEI FastRecovery is a good data recovery tool that you should use to get back files from a RAW USB drive.
Save your data before fixing RAW flash drive using CMD
As mentioned above, fixing a RAW USB drive requires formatting, which will erase your data. Therefore, please use reliable data recovery software to recover any data that may already be lost due to the RAW error, and then back up the data to the cloud or another safe places. It is recommended to use AOMEI FastRecovery, which supports recovering data from HDDs, SSDs, USB drives, SD cards, and more due to disk error like RAW, accidental formatting, disk formatting, system crash, virus attack, and so on.
Now, follow the steps to recover files from RAW USB drive with AOMEI FastRecovery.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI FastRecovery. Choose the exact partition or disk where your data lost and click Scan.
Step 2. Then, the recovery tool start to scan and search. lt will execute the “Quickly Scan" first to find your deleted data fast, and then execute the “Deep Scan" for searching other lost data.
Step 3. Once the scan is completed, all deleted files, recycle bins and other missing files will be displayed. Please select the file you would like to recover and then click "Recover".
Step 4. Then, select a folder path to save your recovered files.
Step 5. Wait patiently for this process of recovering ends.
How to fix a raw USB drive using CMD
After successfully recovering the lost data, it is time to fix RAW flash drive using CMD. To make the RAW partition usable again, you need to format it to a proper file system. In this guide, we will demonstrate the process of formatting a RAW drive using Command Prompt in Windows.
Step 1. Click “Start” button, type “cmd” in the Search box, right click the given Command Prompt icon and select “Run as administrator”.
Step 2. In the Command Prompt window, type “Diskpart” to open Diskpart service, then input commands listed below one by one.
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list volume and hit “Enter”: all partitions on your computer will be listed.
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select volume # and hit “Enter”: # is the specific number of the RAW partition, here we select volume 6.
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format fs=ntfs quick and hit “Enter”: if you want to recover RAW drive to FAT32 or exFAT, you can input format fs=fat32, or format fs=exfat instead.
After DiskPart successfully formatted the volume, you can type “exit” and press “Enter” to close the Command Prompt window.
Can you fix RAW hard drive without formatting?
Yes, you can. If you want to fix a RAW hard drive without formatting, you can use Diskpart to repair the RAW USB drive. However, this method is not always reliable, and you may fail to fix the RAW drive. Even worse, if you input the wrong command, it could even lead to data overwritten, and the data on the USB drive may be permanently lost.
- Open Run by holding Windows + R.
- Type cmd and press Enter to enter the Command Prompt screen.
- Type chkdsk G:/f/r and press Enter.
On the other hand, if you format a large RAW partition over 32GB to FAT32, it will fail and pop out an error message: the volume size is too big for FAT32. If you're looking for a simple solution, AOMEI Partition Assistant is a great option. It's a free disk formatting tool designed specifically for Windows users. It allows you to format write-protected disks, corrupted SD cards, and a FAT32 hard drive larger than 32GB.
Conclusion
Here's a guide on fixing a RAW USB drive using CMD. As you can see, repairing a RAW USB drive can be challenging and risky without formatting it. Luckily, it is possible to resolve the issue without losing any data by using AOMEI FastRecovery. For the safety of your data, it is important to recover your files from the RAW USB drive first before, or you can still try this tool even after the repair process due to its powerful features.
