USB Drive RAW: Causes, Fixes & Recovery Solutions

A USB drive shows as "RAW" when the operating system cannot recognize its file system, usually due to corruption, damage, or incorrect formatting, making the drive inaccessible. Common causes include malware, abrupt removal, failed formatting, or an unstable power supply. While data can be lost, recovery is possible through specialized data recovery software such as iCare Recovery Free that scans the drive's contents. To fix it, you can use Windows built-in tools like CHKDSK to check for file system errors, or use DiskPart to reformat the drive, but note that reformatting will erase all data.

What Does It Mean When a USB Drive Is RAW?

A USB RAW file system indicates that your USB or external drive has lost its recognizable format (like NTFS or FAT32). This usually prevents you from accessing files normally and may prompt formatting requests. But formatting can erase data, so recovery comes first.

• RAW drives cannot be opened normally.
• Windows often asks: “Do you want to format this drive?”
• Data remains inside but is inaccessible without recovery tools.

Why Is My USB Drive Showing RAW Format?

There are several reasons why your USB flash drive or external hard disk suddenly shows RAW:

• 🛑 Improper ejection or sudden power loss
• 🦠 Virus or malware attack
• ⚡ File system corruption
• 💾 Bad sectors or hardware damage

Why a USB Drive Becomes RAW

• Damaged File System: The drive's file system is missing or corrupted, making the drive unreadable by the operating system.
• Incompatible File System: The operating system cannot understand the drive's file system.
• Virus/Malware: A malicious attack can corrupt the file system.
• Power Issues: Abrupt power failures while the drive is in use.
• Improper Ejection: Removing the USB drive while it’s in use can cause corruption.
• Incomplete Formatting: A failed formatting attempt can leave the drive in RAW state.
• Hardware Issues: Less commonly, hardware failures may cause RAW format errors.

How to Recover RAW Files from a USB Drive

Before formatting your RAW USB drive, try recovering files using a free tool like iCare Recovery Free. It helps restore lost data without requiring advanced technical skills.

Steps with iCare Recovery Free:

1. Download and install iCare Recovery Free.
2. Connect your RAW USB or external drive.
3. Open the software, choose RAW DRIVE RECOVERY from the software interface. Select your raw usb stick.
4. Run a scan to locate recoverable files.
5. Save recovered files to another safe location. Please do not save the found files to the same raw usb drive. You can save the data to the computer hard drive.

How to Fix a RAW USB Flash Drive

To fix the RAW USB drive and make it usable again, you should attempt to recover data first and then repair it with Windows' built-in tools such as CHKDSK, or format it using Command Prompt or File Explorer. ⚠️ Keep in mind: formatting will erase all data on the drive.

1. Data Recovery (If You Need the Data)

If you need to recover files, use specialized recovery software like iCare Recovery Free. This can scan the drive and retrieve files without requiring a working file system.

2. Use Windows’ CHKDSK Command (To Repair Without Losing Data)

• Open Command Prompt as administrator.
• Type chkdsk X: /r (replace X with your drive letter) and press Enter.
• Reboot your PC after the scan completes.

3. Format the Drive (To Erase Data and Make It Usable)

If data recovery isn’t necessary, formatting the drive will rebuild the file system.

Using Command Prompt (DiskPart):

• Type diskpart in the Windows search bar and press Enter.
• Type list volume to see your drives.
• Select your RAW USB with select volume X (replace X with correct number).
• Type format fs=ntfs quick (or fs=fat32 quick) and press Enter.

Using File Explorer:

• Locate the RAW USB drive, right-click it, and choose Format.
• Select NTFS or FAT32 as file system and check Quick Format.
• Click Start to complete.

Fixing a RAW USB Drive After Recovery

Once your data is safe, you can repair the drive by formatting it back to NTFS or FAT32:

• Right-click the drive in Windows Explorer → Format
• Select file system (NTFS/FAT32) → Start
• Your drive will be usable again 🚀

Frequently Asked Questions (FAQ)

1. Why is my USB drive RAW?

This usually happens due to file system corruption, improper removal, or malware attacks.

2. Can I fix a RAW USB drive without losing data?

Yes, with recovery tools like iCare Recovery Free, you can extract files before formatting.

3. How do I recover RAW files from a USB flash drive?

Use iCare Recovery Free or similar data recovery software to scan and restore your files.

4. Why is my external drive showing RAW?

Just like USB sticks, external drives can become RAW due to bad sectors, sudden disconnection, or system errors.

5. Is iCare Recovery Free really free?

Yes ✅ iCare Recovery Free allows free recovery of files from RAW USB drives and other storage devices.

6. How do I fix a RAW USB drive?

You can try these methods: recover files with iCare Recovery Free, use Windows CHKDSK command (chkdsk X: /r), or format the drive using Command Prompt/File Explorer.

More USB Flash Drive RAW Knowledge - a complete solution you cannot miss

Is your thumb drive showing file system RAW? Here is a photo that would show exactly the same one under 'Property' when you right click the raw flash drive under its property in term of General. It indicates that the used space is 0 bytes, free space 0 bytes together with capacity in 0 bytes too while you have got probably tons of data inside that you used this flash stick to save files.

usb flash file sytem raw unreadable

Symptoms of usb flash drive raw error

Here are some photos and error messages that would popup if you try to open your usb drive when your thumb drive is raw.

Flash drive raw needs formatting when you try to access the drive. It warns 'You need to format the disk in drive R: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?' in Windows 10

And flash drive raw file system would look like this popup photo if you are with Windows XP OS. flash drive reports message like "The disk in drive is not formatted do you want to format it now"?

When you do chkdsk trying to repair the thumb drive by using chkdsk J:/f, it would respond a message: The type of file system is raw. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

When location is not available message showed up when you want to open your usb drive, it would say: F:\ is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.

Location is not available for raw usb drive. D:\ is not accessible. The parameter is incorrect on flash drive.

Location is not available for raw usb drive. R:\ is not accessible. The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable.

Why Usb Thumb drive Turned RAW in file system suddenly

There are many chances that your usb stick may get corrupted and become file system RAW, including

1. Bad blocks occurred after using thumb stick for a while, and it may happen anytime without any sign.
2. Damaged MBR (master boot record)
3. Virus attack, when your flash drive was connected to PC, the virus on computer would get it affected too.
4. Damaged MFT (MASTER FILE ALLOCATION TABLE), the one that records where your data stored on your usb drive.
5. Sudden electric power of failure, or just a power surge may get the usb drive damaged
6. Removed the thumb drive directly without safe removal mode
7. Formatting failure by disk management or any third party formatting utilities
8. Other unknown causes

Once your flash drive is raw, it usually comes up with 0 bytes in space and would be mostly inaccessible at the same time.

Do not try to repair or chkdsk the damaged usb drive to keep the best chance of data recovery from the raw drive.

Free Tools for Recovering Data from RAW Flash Drive (2 Free + 1 Paid )

Tool#1: Recover raw flash drive with iCare Recovery Free

Step1. Plug the RAW flash drive to the PC where has installed the software. Start the program and select a mode for scanning. Choose 'Deep Scan Recovery' for raw flash drive recovery.

Step2. Wait the software to scan the RAW thumb drive.

Step3. Select files found by the software to scan and then restore them.

Tool#2: Recover files from raw flash drive with Recuva -free

Recuva is a decent freeware for recovering data from raw thumb drive and it is complete free of charge. There is also a paid version which is entitled for business use with the same functions. Free edition is for good and enough for you.

Here are the download links

1. https://www.ccleaner.com/recuva

Tool#3: Recover raw usb using professional raw drive recovery tool

This is a commercial yet professional tool that is efficient in recovering files from your raw pen drive.

Here in solution, we have tested a program - Stellar Data Recovery, which can find almost all your files from the raw pen drive. It only asks for a code when it could find data for you.

Here are the steps for using the program that is built with user friendly interface.

Step 1: Get your raw pen drive on PC/MAC and then select file types you need to recover from your pen drive.

Step 2: Select your usb device

Step 3: Preview found data

Step 4: It's better to save raw drive files to another device to keep the raw flash drive untouched even during the recovery process.

Part 2: Recover RAW USB with cmd diskpart (Format raw usb to fat32/ntfs using cmd)

flash drive raw to ntfs/fat32

You can only do this converting when the important data was successfully restored to somewhere else, or any change of the flash drive would kind of risky to lose data on the usb.

Open cmd by the following route: Press Windows+R to open 'Run' box. Type 'cmd'

CMD > diskpart > format X: /fs:ntfs

Or the following as option

CMD > type list disk > type select disk < type list volume > type format fs=ntfs label=volume label quick (or type convert x: /fs:ntfs, x: refers to the drive letter of the RAW partition)

If the above cmd does not work, try these following steps instead

Format usb that cannot be formatted

If you want to know more about how to format raw to fat32, be free to read this guide: Top free ways to format raw to fat32

Video Guide: repair raw file system error

Format pen drive raw to fat32/ntfs by Disk Management or Windows formatter

The term RAW is basically used for accessing the data from disk storage, hard drive or some other kind of media instead of some proper file system.  You can not get access on files on the raw disk and if you try to access the files you will often get a message such as "disk is not formatted" and then it will provide you two options that whether you want to format the disk or not.

Here, you can format pen drive to change RAW drive to FAT32 by right click the pen stick or format it under disk management after data recovered from the raw pendrive by iCare Recovery Free.

Format option 1: format it by right click the media, and select format option

format usb pen drive

Format option 2: format pen memory stick by function under 'disk management'

format usb pen drive under disk management

Video: how to fix raw pen drive

=> To know more about how to fix RAW error, please refer to: complete guide for RAW drive fix

Question: Can I Format My RAW Flash PenDrive without losing data?

Is it safe to format the RAW USB flash drive for RAW file system fixing? Technically speaking, you should try to avoid formatting it when there are a lot of files inside. You need to recover data from the raw usb at first and then get it fixed later.

What is file system RAW, NTFS, FAT32, EXFAT, HFS

Flash drive, namely USB flash drive, pen drive or thumb drive, appeals to many people due to its small size with large capacity.

Since you are now with a raw pen drive, we would like to share some basic computing knowledge with you regarding to the file system on storage media.

NTFS/FAT32: It is set to be ntfs/fat32 when you firstly receive your flash drive from factory, resellers, online stores, or local digital shops and the early state of usb flash drive has been formatted from RAW to ntfs/fat32 by factory.

So it's already good for storing data that you don't have to do anything else about its formatting or file system.

File System RAW: it is the state in factory during producing the flash drive when it is first made inside of factory and then later the factory would operate a low level of formatting to make its file system raw to Windows easily recognized file system: ntfs, fat32, exfat or more.

File System NTFS, exfat, fat32 are Windows acceptable file system for digital storage devices according to different capacity, abilities, time of speed, block size and age of popular settings.

File system hfs is a Mac file system that is acceptable under the MAC OS, ie iOS.

Last updated on Aug 22, 2025

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