Seeing your external or internal drive suddenly appear as “RAW” instead of “NTFS” in Windows is one of the most alarming issues for any user. You may still see the drive letter in “This PC,” but it won’t open. Instead, Windows prompts you to format it, saying the file system is not recognized. In Disk Management, the partition still exists, but its file system shows as “RAW.” This can happen on any version of Windows, including Windows 7 Ultimate 64-bit, and is especially common with external hard drives or USB drives.
So, what does RAW mean? RAW isn’t a format—it means the file system has become unreadable or corrupted. The data may still be intact physically, but the operating system can no longer read the structure that tells it how to find and display the files. In most cases, this is caused by improper disconnection, file system damage from power loss, failing sectors, or a corrupted partition table.
Now to the real question: can you convert a RAW partition back to NTFS without losing data?
The honest answer is that Windows provides no built-in tool to safely convert a RAW volume back to NTFS without formatting. The only Windows command available, chkdsk, does not work on RAW drives—it will return an error like “CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.” So, you need third-party tools, and even then, it’s not a 100% guaranteed recovery.
Step 1: Stop Using the Drive Immediately
Once a drive turns RAW, don’t format it, don’t copy anything to it, and don’t run random utilities that write to the disk. Every write operation risks overwriting recoverable data. Your goal is to preserve the current state until recovery is successful.
Step 2: Use Professional Data Recovery Software
There are several well-known tools that can scan RAW partitions and recover data without modifying the drive:
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iCare Data Recovery: Offers a “Deep Scan Recovery” specifically for RAW file systems. It doesn’t fix the RAW structure but allows you to extract your files before reformatting.
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EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard: One of the most user-friendly tools for scanning and recovering files from RAW drives. It supports previewing files before restoring them.
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TestDisk (Open Source): Can sometimes rebuild a damaged partition table and restore access without formatting, but it’s command-line based and not beginner-friendly.
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R-Studio: Used by professionals, this tool performs in-depth recovery and supports virtually all file systems.
Install one of these tools on a separate drive, and scan the RAW drive. Recovery success depends on the extent of the damage—if only the file system table is damaged but the data blocks are intact, full recovery is likely.
Step 3: Back Up Recovered Data
After scanning, recovery software will let you save found files to another drive. Always use a different physical disk as the destination to avoid overwriting files.
Once your data is backed up, you can go ahead and format the RAW drive back to NTFS using Windows Disk Management or Diskpart. After formatting, copy your data back.
Can You Convert RAW to NTFS Without Formatting?
Some online guides suggest converting RAW to NTFS using diskpart or convert commands, but this is not possible without data loss. Those commands apply to healthy partitions, not RAW volumes.
Even tools that claim “RAW to NTFS conversion without data loss” are, in reality, performing recovery + format operations under the hood. So technically, there is no safe “conversion”—there is only recovery first, then reformatting.
When to Call a Professional
If the data is extremely valuable—such as family photos, financial documents, or critical work files—and you’re not confident using recovery software, stop now and consult a professional data recovery service. These companies have hardware-based tools to access sectors directly and rebuild broken file systems.
Continued attempts by non-experts can reduce the chance of success. Also, if the drive shows signs of physical failure (e.g., clicking noises), avoid powering it up repeatedly.
Summary
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RAW file system indicates logical corruption, not necessarily data loss.
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Windows cannot convert RAW to NTFS without formatting.
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Use tools like iCare, EaseUS, TestDisk, or R-Studio to recover files first.
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Once data is recovered, format the drive to NTFS and restore the files.
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Never write new data to the RAW drive before recovery.
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For critical data, consider professional recovery services.
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