My external drive isn't working in Windows 11

[Jerry Hansen]

Hello everyone!
My external hard drive has stopped working. The disc is no longer readable. When I connect the drive to my computer, the system asks me to format it.
It’s an HHD drive that was in FAT format, but now appears as RAW in the disc manager.
I have important files on the drive.
Can anyone help me?

 

[Napster]

sounds like you have unplugged it without ejecting it, don't think you will get it back, I could be wrong.

 

[DashAsh]

Your HDD turning RAW means its file system is unrecognizable, prompting a format request which could erase your data. First, try connecting it to another computer. If unsuccessful, use data recovery software for RAW drives or run "chkdsk /f X:" in Command Prompt (replace X with the drive letter) to repair the file system without data loss. If these steps fail, consider a professional data recovery service.

 

[leemoo]

Been a while since I've had to recover anything like this but have a look at Recuva which is free. Not sure how good this is now though and what the limitations are before you have to pay.
There is software out there that you can use to try and do a recovery. Acronis I think is one. Obviously the better ones will require purchase but you can obviously pick these up from certain sites where you don't have to pay. Good luck mate and I hope you can get the files back.

 

[rainking]

Have you got access to an older pc? I had similar didn't work on 11 but runs fine on win7

 

[Jerry Hansen]

I connected the drive to other Windows and Linux computers. I even took the disc out of its packaging and connected it directly via the SATA interface, but it didn't help. CHKDSK does not work on a raw disc.

I managed to find a solution on the Internet.

I found this article and followed it step by step.

Data Recovery Software For RAW File System

It cost me $97.95, but that's nothing compared to sending the disc to a specialist. I risked losing my files forever. But I can't afford to pay a lot of money.

Now I'd like to tell you how I proceeded.

First of all, I managed to create a copy of the damaged disc using the "HDD Raw Copy Tool".

I downloaded "Hetman Partition Recovery", the program found my RAW drive and started a full scan. It found most of my files and successfully recovered them. Of course, not all files could be recovered, but I was lucky: it managed to recover the most important ones.

And yes, make copies of important files (discs) for the future.
Thanks to all the people who tried to help)