When a drive or partition turns RAW, Windows may ask you to format it before use. Do not format the RAW drive immediately if it contains important files. You can use free RAW data recovery software to scan the RAW partition, recover lost data, and then repair or format the file system safely.
If Windows asks you to format the RAW drive, review RAW drive recovery methods before repairing the file system.
A RAW drive means Windows cannot recognize the file system correctly. This problem may happen to hard drives, external disks, USB drives, SD cards, or other storage devices because of file system corruption, unsafe removal, bad sectors, virus attacks, partition table errors, or interrupted formatting.
Qiling Free Data Recovery can help recover files from RAW drives and RAW partitions before you try to fix the disk. It can scan the affected storage device and restore documents, photos, videos, archives, and other file types to another safe location.
Step 1. Download, install, and launch Qiling Free Data Recovery on your Windows computer. Do not install it on the RAW drive that needs recovery.
Step 2. Select the RAW partition, external drive, USB drive, or SD card where your files were lost, and then click "Scan" to search for recoverable data.
Step 3. Wait for the scan to finish. You can browse the scan results by file type or path, or use the search box to locate target files quickly.
Step 4. Select the files you want to restore and click "Recover". If preview is available, check the file content before recovery.
Step 5. Save the recovered files to another healthy drive. After confirming that the files are restored, you can repair, format, or recreate the RAW partition as needed.