Question Recovering RAW data from External Hard Drive

[GondorCa11s4Aid]

Hey everybody!

I have an external hardrive that no longer appears when plugged in.

I suspect it may be that something failed on the jump board because when I take the drive out of the external housing, remove the jump board, and plug the mechanical drive into a reader, it shows up in “Disk Management” with the data partition intact, but as a RAW drive.

Of course, Windows is saying I have to format the drive to use it, but that will erase the data I need on the drive.

The disk wasn’t dropped or the platter grinding failure or anything, it just seems like the jump board played some role in making it read as a formatted drive instead of a RAW drive.

Does anyone know to recover the data on the RAW drive? What is the best / easiest program that would do this if needed?

 

[kanewolf]

Hey everybody!

I have an external hardrive that no longer appears when plugged in.

I suspect it may be that something failed on the jump board because when I take the drive out of the external housing, remove the jump board, and plug the mechanical drive into a reader, it shows up in “Disk Management” with the data partition intact, but as a RAW drive.

Of course, Windows is saying I have to format the drive to use it, but that will erase the data I need on the drive.

The disk wasn’t dropped or the platter grinding failure or anything, it just seems like the jump board played some role in making it read as a formatted drive instead of a RAW drive.

Does anyone know to recover the data on the RAW drive? What is the best / easiest program that would do this if needed?

It may be in a Linux filesystem format or it may be encrypted by the external enclosure. What external drive did it start out from ?

 

[USAFRet]

Possibly a different sector size (dictated and originated by the enclosure) than what Windows wants.

Yes, your OS wants to format it. Which will result in the loss of all data, as you surmise.

What data might have been on this? Anything life critical?

 

[fzabkar]

Can you show us the Partitions tab in DMDE?

https://dmde.com/

 

[Joe Doe]

I hope this gets an answer because I also have the same problem, i.e.- my external drive somehow turned into RAW but all the data is still there.

There's a software program called "iboysoft" that claims it can "fix minor logical errors and turn RAW file system to a recognized file system with a feature called Fix Drive and all files will be restored without recovery."

Is anyone familiar with this option? The disk shouldn't be damaged so shouldn't need "recovery" in the sense that it just needs to get from RAW back to NTFS. 🙁

 

[USAFRet]

I hope this gets an answer because I also have the same problem, i.e.- my external drive somehow turned into RAW but all the data is still there.

There's a software program called "iboysoft" that claims it can "fix minor logical errors and turn RAW file system to a recognized file system with a feature called Fix Drive and all files will be restored without recovery."

Is anyone familiar with this option? The disk shouldn't be damaged so shouldn't need "recovery" in the sense that it just needs to get from RAW back to NTFS. 🙁

1. Please create a new thread for your situation.

2. Don't buy that software.

3. How do you know "all the data is still there" ?

4. This is specifically what a good backup routine is for.

5. See #1.

 

[fzabkar]

I hope this gets an answer because I also have the same problem, i.e.- my external drive somehow turned into RAW but all the data is still there.

There's a software program called "iboysoft" that claims it can "fix minor logical errors and turn RAW file system to a recognized file system with a feature called Fix Drive and all files will be restored without recovery."

Is anyone familiar with this option? The disk shouldn't be damaged so shouldn't need "recovery" in the sense that it just needs to get from RAW back to NTFS. 🙁

I trust DMDE. I've never used iboysoft, but I would never allow a tool to "repair" a file system without allowing me to examine it beforehand. The present case is particularly dangerous because it is looking like the drive was migrated from an external 4K-bytes-per-sector environment to a 512-bytes-per-sector environment.

FYI, the free version of DMDE can also fix certain problems, and it incorporates a fully functional disc editor.

 

[USAFRet]

The present case is particularly dangerous because it is looking like the drive was migrated from an external 4K-bytes-per-sector environment to a 512-bytes-per-sector environment.

Exactly.

 

[Joe Doe]

I trust DMDE. I've never used iboysoft, but I would never allow a tool to "repair" a file system without allowing me to examine it beforehand. The present case is particularly dangerous because it is looking like the drive was migrated from an external 4K-bytes-per-sector environment to a 512-bytes-per-sector environment.

FYI, the free version of DMDE can also fix certain problems, and it incorporates a fully functional disc editor.

Awesome, thanks for the kind advice, which I’m sure helps the OP being the same scenario!



I’ll definitely download and try DMDE out as well as look forward to learning more about the possible bytes-per-sector migration issue when OP replies. 👍🤝🤙🙏

 

[fzabkar]

This is the reason I would avoid iBoysoft:

https://iboysoft.com/data-recovery/free-data-recovery.html

The headline is "iBoysoft Free Data Recovery Software for Windows". That's what Google sees. The fact is that it's not free -- it costs US$70. The free Trial version recovers nothing.

OTOH, DMDE's free version will recover up to 4000 files of any size from any one folder per run. The standard full featured version costs US$20. None of the 'spammy' tools even come close.

 

[stonecarver]

I suspect it may be that something failed on the jump board because when I take the drive out of the external housing, remove the jump board, and plug the mechanical drive into a reader, it shows up in “Disk Management” with the data partition intact, but as a RAW drive.

Just a stupid question when you were in--- Disk Manager---you said the drive showed up. Did you happen to see if the drive had a DRIVE letter assigned to the drive?

If not give it one and restart.

 

[GondorCa11s4Aid]

It may be in a Linux filesystem format or it may be encrypted by the external enclosure. What external drive did it start out from ?

Sorry about the late response, busy week haha - The drive it started out from was a WD "My Book"

 

[GondorCa11s4Aid]

Possibly a different sector size (dictated and originated by the enclosure) than what Windows wants.

Yes, your OS wants to format it. Which will result in the loss of all data, as you surmise.

What data might have been on this? Anything life critical?

Gotcha, the data on it was a lot of work data/business stuff I need

 

[kanewolf]

Sorry about the late response, busy week haha - The drive it started out from was a WD "My Book"

A lot of WD My Book units use encryption on the disk. Have you googled "WD My Book XX GB" to see if what other peoples experiences are ?

 

[fzabkar]

Can you show us the Partitions tab in DMDE?