my external hard drive keeps coming up as RAW and i cannot access it without formatting it

[showgy20]

I'm trying to access my external hard drive without formatting it. In CMD, when i type chkdsk /f e: it states that the file system is RAW... how can i fix this and access my external hard drive without formatting?

 

[Saga Lout]

Was it previously used in a system which didn't run Windows?

 

[showgy20]

No. We previously had Windows XP on a desktop and am now unable to use the external hard drive on Windows XP on our laptop

 

[Saga Lout]

It may have started to fail if it was working but suddenly turned to RAW. I can only sugegst a light Quick Format followed by data recovery. It always works for me in these circumstances.

 

[basroil]

It may have started to fail if it was working but suddenly turned to RAW. I can only sugegst a light Quick Format followed by data recovery. It always works for me in these circumstances.

Do not format it if you want recovery. Most software can look for corrupted file tables to make recovery faster and easier (including keeping file names), but formatting might delete what's left.

 

[Saga Lout]

It's a cyclical argument - how does he do that if the format is anything but NTFS?

My first post here was to ask if another system had been used to establish if it might be available again but it was not. You have to format and then recover. It's worked here on a hundred or more disks and I usually get most data back after a quick format using Recuva or REST2514 but paid for software might do a better job. In Recuva, search for specifics - photos, documents for example - or you get all the junk that comes with the OS.

The emphasis has to be on the quick part of the format - it's such a light touch it's over in seconds.

 

[Eric Bentsen]

I'll see if Recuva can save anything from my hard drive. It has a thumb drive version you can run it from too.