Fix CHKDSK Is Not Available For RAW Drives in Windows 10
If you receive the error “CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives” in Windows 10, you can learn how to check and recover your RAW drives from this helpful article.
CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives in Windows 10
“My Kingston 16GB USB flash drive gets into RAW in Windows 10 File Explorer when I insert it to the computer. Google online and then I was told to check if there is something wrong with my USB drive. Opened Command Prompt as administrator and typed chkdsk H: /f and pressed Enter. Only to get this error information reading: The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives. What does that error message mean? What should I do to make my USB drive usable again?”
That is a helpful post about CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives on USB flash drive in Windows 10. Actually, said error occurs not only on USB stick, but also on (micro) SD card, pen drive, and (Seagate) external hard drive in Windows 7/8/10/11.
Along with CHKDSK not available, you can also find Convert is not available for RAW drives in kinds of forums as well. Then, what’s the problem with RAW drives? What does that error message refer to?
What "CHKDSK not available for RAW drives"?
Simply put, the command CHKDSK cannot be used on a drive with a RAW format. Therefore, Windows cannot perform a disk check on that drive. Many Windows commands don’t work on RAW drives because Windows cannot access that drive. Then, you may wonder what a RAW drive is.
A RAW format drive refers to a drive that has not been formatted to any readable file system, such as NTFS, FAT32, or exFAT by Windows. Then, it occurs on internal hard drives or SSDs as well. Sometimes, a drive becomes RAW due to a corrupted file system or serious bad sectors. Data on that drive is not readable, let alone performing other operations.
After comprehending what a RAW drive is and why you get CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives on SD card or other storage, it is important to know how to solve this trouble.
How to fix CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives error effectively
Sadly, while Windows' built-in tool CHKDSK is designed for NTFS, FAT32, and exFAT file systems, it cannot directly check or repair RAW drives. Instead, you can use third-party tools to recover data from RAW drives. Take some actions to see if you can recover any data. Next, change the RAW format to a file system that can be recognized by Windows, and then perform the disk checking.
Here we recommend AOMEI Partition Assistant, an overall partition manager that can check partitions, recover deleted partitions, and format partitions as long as there is no new data has been written to that partition. All Windows PC systems are supported: Windows 11/10/8/8.1/7, and you can choose the Server version for your Windows Server devices.
100% SecureOption 1. Try partition recovery
First, we can try to recover the partition table on your RAW drive.
Step 1. Install and launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click Recover >Partition Recovery on the toolbar.
Step 2. Select the disk that contains lost/deleted partition.
Step 3. Select a search method, Fast Search (recommended) or Full Search.
Step 4. Select the partition you want to recover and click Proceed. The time this process takes depends on how much data is on the partition. Wait for it to complete.
Option 2. Check RAW drive when chkdsk is not available
As covered, a drive will become RAW due to serious bad sectors. Therefore, you can perform disk checking to confirm. Since you cannot do that with Windows built-in tools, it is suggested to try another. AOMEI Partition Assistant also allows you to check bad sectors on the disk in a few minutes.
Step 1. Open AOMEI Partition Assistant. Click the disk you want to check and select Disk Surface Test.
Step 2. Check Quick Check option and then click Start. The process will complete in a short while.
Option 3. Format RAW drive to NTFS/FAT32/exFAT
To make your drive available again, we need to format the RAW drive to a Windows-recognized file system. If you run the convert command on a RAW drive in CMD, you’ll receive the error: CONVERT is not available for RAW drives. Reasons are discussed before, so you need to change the command to a different one, format. And if you type Command Prompt in the search box and run it as administrator, and type format H: /fs:fat32 (where H: is the RAW drive) at the prompt, you may get this error in several minutes: The media being formatted has been removed or has become invalid. Format aborted. Format failed.
Even if you know you didn’t remove anything during the formatting, the error is likely to happen. In that case, you need to format RAW drive with another Windows tool, Diskpart.
💻 Format RAW drive using Diskpart in Windows 10
Type diskpart in CMD and press Enter. Input these commands and press Enter after each command:
list volume > select volume n (where n is the volume number of the RAW drive) > format fs=fat32 quick (you can replace fat32 with ntfs or exfat) > exit.
Note: Windows allows formatting a removable storage (flash drive or memory card) with exFAT file system. That is to say, if you format a partition with exFAT on internal hard drive, the format may not be completed.
✨ Format RAW drive in AOMEI Partition Assistant
The partition manager, AOMEI Partition Assistant, is able to format RAW drive to NTFS, FAT32 or exFAT wherever the partition is. In addition, it overcomes the inherent limit of Windows built-in formatting tool, and has the capability to format 64GB SD card to FAT32. After format the drive, the data will be cleaned. But, this handy tool also has "Data Recover" function, so you can try to scan this formatted drive and recover the formatted data.
100% SecureStep 1. Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant. Right-click the RAW drive and select Format Partition.
Step 2. Choose file system, specify partition label, and select cluster size in the pop-up window.
Step 3. Click Apply and then Proceed to execute.
After changing RAW drive to a readable file system, you can try disk checking on the external hard drive, SD card, or USB flash drive once again with CHKDSK command.
Summary
The next time when you come across the error: The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives in Windows, don’t be panic. You can recover possible data, check bad sectors in another way, format RAW drive to a readable file system, and then do disk checking. AOMEI Partition Assistant is a good assistant to solve other issues as well. For instance, you can perform SSD data wiping without hurting its lifespan.