How to Repair and Format a Raw Flash Drive

1. I have a 2GB flash drive that its file system was FAT32 before, but now it is RAW. When I insert this flash drive to my computer, it can be detected by my computer but its capacity has only 8MB. How can I convert the RAW to its original file system FAT32? By the way, I have many important data inside the flash drive; can I reuse the data after converting RAW to FAT32?

Solution: Usually you can convert RAW to FAT32 by formatting or some converting tools. If you still want to reuse the data inside the flash drive, you should perform data recovery before converting.

2. How to convert RAW file system to NTFS? My computer hard disk becomes RAW file system and asks me to format the disk. The file system of hard disk was NTFS, so I want to know how I can convert RAW file system to NTFS.

Solution: You can right click on the RAW disk and format it to NTFS. But you should know data will be erased after formatting, so you should recover data first before you formatting the hard disk.

How to Convert RAW to FAT32 or NTFS without Data Loss?

In order to recover data from the RAWdrive, you must rely on third-party data recovery software. I would like to recommend some freeware to help you restore the data from RAW drive.

The first freeware - iCare Data Recovery Free

iCare Data Recovery Free works perfectly under Windows7, Windows XP and Vista. It allows users to recover photos, videos, music and documents and almost all types of files from flash drive, USB drive, hard drive, external hard drive and memory card and more.

The second freeware –Stellar Phoenix Windows Data Recovery

Stellar is the other advanced data recovery freeware that can not only recovers files from RAW file system, but also helps recover data after formatting or deleting. It also supports to recover data from almost all kinds of devices and storage media.

Important tips: Data recovery software can only help you recover data from the RAW file system, but it can’t help convert RAW to FAT32 or NTFS.

Steps to Recover Data from RAW and Change RAW to FAT32 or NTFS 

Download iCare recovery free

Step1. Insert the flash drive to your PC. Download and install the software to your PC. Then run this software and select the "Deep Scan Recovery" module.

Step2. Select the RAW drive and click "Recover" button. Then wait while the software is scanning the drive in order to search for the data.

Step3. Choose the partitions after scanning and click "Show Files" button in order to view the found files inside those partitions.

Step4. Select all the files you want and click "Save Files" button so as to save them. You can’t save the selected files to the RAW drive.

Download Stellar Phoenix for RAW Drive Recovery

Step1. Connect the flash drive to your laptop and free download the software. Install and launch the software. Then select one recovery module to start the data recovery.

Step2. Choose the RAW drive and click "Start Scan" button.

Step3. Wait during the scan process.

Step4. Preview all the found files to evaluate if they are the ones you want and store them to your computer hard disk.

Both of the two freeware above can work well to help you recover data from the RAW drive. Now your data has been recovered completely. Then you can format the RAW flash drive to FAT32 or NTFS, after which the flash drive can work well again and you can also copy the recovered data to the flash drive. 

Symptoms of RAW drive

Windows shows "Disk in drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now?"
"Sector not found" message
The capacity of drive shows 0 byte
Drive can’t be recognized or detected
Abort, Retry, Fail?
Invalid media type reading drive.

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