HDD drive suddenly listed as RAW file system?!

[jnelsoninjax]

I have been getting some odd errors attempting to write data to one of my drives, so I attempted to run chkdsk and am meet by:The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives. What is going on here? I obviously can still access this drive. This is in Windows 7

[+Warwagon MVC]

Might have bad sectors.

[ndoggfromhell]

definitely grab a hirens disc and run some diag on the drive. Sounds like either bad sectors or a completely failing hard drive.

[lars77]

Yup, you likely have a failing hard drive, or possibly the hard drive is fine but the partition is corrupt.

Run an HD diagnostic & see if it gives you any errors, if it does then you may want to attempt data recovery (or give up on it if it doesn't have anything important). If the HD is fine then maybe it's just the partition that's bad.. try running Testdisk off a Linux live disc & see if you can recover the partition.

[brink668]

Look at the drive using a copy of Ubuntu, I have been through this many times but sometimes the drive just goes bad hopefully that is not the case here. I have been able to recover files and all the data from RAW drives but sometimes the drives are damaged and the data can not be saved.

[jnelsoninjax]

The odd thing here is that I am able to copy data to and from this drive, and only noticed this issue when I attempted to download a linux distro torrent using Vuze. Vuze told me that it was unable to write to the drive, which prompted me to run chkdsk on it, which is how I discovered this whole issue. I suppose that the good thing is if it is bad, I can still get it replaced under warranty!

[tomasarson]

The odd thing here is that I am able to copy data to and from this drive, and only noticed this issue when I attempted to download a linux distro torrent using Vuze. Vuze told me that it was unable to write to the drive, which prompted me to run chkdsk on it, which is how I discovered this whole issue. I suppose that the good thing is if it is bad, I can still get it replaced under warranty!

you should backup your data asap.

then i would probably check the s.m.a.r.t. status of the drive.

[jnelsoninjax]

^SMART status shows OK, according to both Data lifeguard tools and seatools.

[tomasarson]

^SMART status shows OK, according to both Data lifeguard tools and seatools.

then you might want to backup your stuff, repartition/format and do a full disk scan.

or backup your stuff and get a replacement drive.

[SoCalRox]

I'm with tomasarson. I'd spend more time copying FROM it than to it. Back it up, and reformat it, perhaps?

[jnelsoninjax]

Now suddenly it is back to reporting NTFS. :/ I checked the drive with Easus Partition Master, and it cleary shows the drive is NTFS, and I have the program check the partition and it is showing everything is OK... but I still get access denied errors when attempting to move data around on that partition.

[Detection]

Easeus Partition/Data Recovery Manager can recover usually everything from a suddenly turned RAW drive but your gonna need another drive the size of the data you want to recover to save it to as you can not recover to the same drive you are recovering from

[+Warwagon MVC]

Now suddenly it is back to reporting NTFS. :/ I checked the drive with Easus Partition Master, and it cleary shows the drive is NTFS, and I have the program check the partition and it is showing everything is OK... but I still get access denied errors when attempting to move data around on that partition.

Backup what you can, then it's Spinrite time baby!

[+BudMan MVC]

What kind of connection is this drive using? Is this USB external drive? PATA/SATA/ESATA?

If you sure you have a good connection and drive is passing tests, and your getting access denied problems - I would look to the permissions as your problem vs a hardware issue.

So you ran the drive through the makers long test, and reports good? And smart is showing no problems? Sure just was not a connection problem/power problem? What is your power supply and how many things do you have added to this machine?

I see issues quite often when connecting disks externally with my 2.5/3.5/sata/pata cable if the connection is off or power up didn't go just right where windows sees the disk but says its initialized, etc.. Redo the connection and good to go.

[brink668]

Now suddenly it is back to reporting NTFS. :/ I checked the drive with Easus Partition Master, and it cleary shows the drive is NTFS, and I have the program check the partition and it is showing everything is OK... but I still get access denied errors when attempting to move data around on that partition.

I would start backing up the data from that drive at once. Just because the RAW went away does not mean your out of trouble.

[jnelsoninjax]

What kind of connection is this drive using? Is this USB external drive? PATA/SATA/ESATA?

If you sure you have a good connection and drive is passing tests, and your getting access denied problems - I would look to the permissions as your problem vs a hardware issue.

So you ran the drive through the makers long test, and reports good? And smart is showing no problems? Sure just was not a connection problem/power problem? What is your power supply and how many things do you have added to this machine?

I see issues quite often when connecting disks externally with my 2.5/3.5/sata/pata cable if the connection is off or power up didn't go just right where windows sees the disk but says its initialized, etc.. Redo the connection and good to go.

It is internal SATA, PSU is a 700W running 3 HDD's and a Optical Drive, I have an aux power supply for my GPU

[cybertimber2008]

I'm going to 2nd what many people said. Backup the data on that drive and do a full, fresh format on the drive. There is some sort of problem and since SMART is reporting nothing, it could be the board on the hard drive.

[+BudMan MVC]

If internal sata, seems odd that would be connection problem - with that size psu unlikely that a power problem. Did it happen after a reboot or coming back from hibernate or standby. Or just out of the blue?

It is always a GOOD IDEA to have backup - and for sure always have backup of your critical files, etc. Which should be normal operation, not something should be doing because you feel your hdd might die soon. I couldn't hurt to take a backup of files you normally don't if that is the case if you feel something funky with the drive.

But if all the tests show good -- and happened upon boot or return from standby/hibernation it could be just a odd/rare fluke. Here's the thing if it passes all tests from makers tools, and not showing any smart issues then its not going to be possible to rma, etc. So what your not going to use the drive any more? Because of one fluke weirdness? That seems like a shame - if you don't want to use it anymore, you could send it my way ;) hehehe I will be happy to use the space.

Like I said you should always have critical files backed up anyway.. So its going to be just like any other drive - which any drive could just die tmrw without any warning. You always hope for warning signs, smart notification, etc. But any HDD could just give out any minute so because you have one weird issue with it does not mean its no longer a viable resource for storage.

Make sure you run the FULL LONG test from the makers tools - if that fails then you should be able to return for replacement, if still under warranty.

[jnelsoninjax]

There is nothing of any real importance on the drive, so the few items I feel that I need , I have backed up. As for when it happens, I only noticed it one time about 2 days ago when attempting to download to the drive, I kept getting errors and when I ran chkdsk it refused to run stating that it was RAW file system, but since then I only have had one issue, and that was when trying to copy something to the drive from another drive and I am meet with access denied message, but I have taken ownership, and checked sharing for the whole drive, but it is only on 2 files that this error is happening, I have checked with IOBIT unlocker and it informs me that nothing is locking the files... I was able to move the files using unlocker.

[+BudMan MVC]

Dude you sure you want to keep using it -- if your worried you can send it to me, and I will test it out for a year or 2 to see how its behaves ;)

[jnelsoninjax]

^Thanks BudMan, I think I'll keep it and 'test' it myself! :D