Seagate External Hard Drive Showing As RAW | Recover & Fix

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• Fix RAW Seagate external hard drive using Disk Checking Tool
• Repair with CHKDSK command
• Format the RAW Seagate external hard drive
• Fix Seagate external hard drive showing as RAW without losing data

Seagate as a famous storage device manufacturer has designed and created a series of internal and external storage products like Barracuda, Ironwolf, Basic, Backup Plus, etc.

Many users are willing to use Seagate products as storage or backup devices to protect their data from being lost.

However, when more unexpected and severe issues occur, many users are still unprepared and at loss – some users find the Seagate external hard drive showing as RAW and they lose access to their files.

How to tell if your Seagate external hard drive is RAW? The symptoms are apparent.

• The Seagate external hard drive shows 0 bytes in File Explorer/This PC.
• It is marked as “RAW” in Disk Management.

In addition, when trying to access the drive, you may receive these messages.

• “Drive: \ not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable”.
• “The type of the file system is RAW. chkdsk is not available for RAW drives”.
• You need to format the disk in drive E: before you can use it. Do you want to format it?”

Then, why would the Seagate external hard drive become RAW?

Why is my hard drive showing raw instead of NTFS?

When the Seagate drive becomes “RAW”, it hints that the file system of the drive is lost/damaged/incompatible/unreadable/non-supported. And many reasons lead to this.

Don’t worry; the solutions to recover Seagate external hard drives are gathered in the following part. Just check it out.

Solutions to fix Seagate external hard drive showing as RAW

Some practicable methods here can help you fix this issue. Use them with care because some fixes like disk formatting will lead to data loss. If you want to recover Seagate external hard drive without losing data, please check the next section.

Solution 1. Fix RAW Seagate external hard drive using Disk Checking Tool

Check Disk is a good tool to scan and fix possible file system errors on the chosen drive. If it warns you that the disk check could not be performed because Windows can’t access the disk, move on and see if the following methods can help you.

Step 1. Start File Explorer > right-click the SD card > Properties.

Step 2. Switch to the Tools tab > Check > OK.

Step 3. Repair drive > follow the instructions to restart your computer.

Solution 2. Repair with CHKDSK command

CMD is also viable when you find Seagate external hard drive showing as RAW. If you find CHKDSK not working or you see the message “The type of the file system is RAW. chkdsk is not available for RAW drives”, this method is not working for your situation; please check the following methods.

Step 1. Make sure you connect the external drive carefully > start Command Prompt > Run as administrator.

Step 2. Input chkdsk F:/f. This will fix the detected file system error of the external hard drive. Make sure to replace the “F” with the exact letter of the Seagate drive.

Users can also use this command with the /r parameter to get data from hard drive without formatting when the drive gets corrupted.

Solution 3. Format the RAW Seagate external hard drive

If the above fixes cannot work and make it, the Seagate external hard drive might have to be formatted to be “alive” again. By formatting the Seagate external disk, we can generate a new file system.

Notes:✎...

Please note that disk formatting will wipe all files on the hard drive, after which you will lose all your data if you haven’t gotten them off. 

If you want to convert RAW to NTFS without losing data, please jump to the next part and use professional data recovery software to recover your files; or, you could also back up drive before formatting.

Step 1. Right-click on the Windows start menu > click Disk Management.

Step 2. Connect your Seagate external hard drive to the PC > right-click on it > select Format > specify the file system, e.g., NTFS.

How to Fix Seagate external hard drive showing as RAW without losing data?

When the Seagate external hard drive becomes RAW, Seagate data recovery is the priority to most users because it happens all of a sudden and leaves no time for users to get their data off.

Then, how to recover data from damaged Seagate external hard drives? The most efficient way is to utilize Windows data recovery tools.

Browsing the internet, you may find a great load of data rescue tools; which one is the best one that can apply to your needs?

Among the popular and eligible apps, MyRecover is the most cost-effective and useful one. With the help of its unique features and advanced tech, users can scan and restore target files in 3 simple steps.

Widely-applicable. Adapt to a variety of Windows data loss scenarios, such as deletion, formatting, recycle bin emptying, virus, system crash, etc. 

Convenient. Keep the original file formats, names, and structures during recovery. 

Efficient. Recover your most needed data, including images, movies, documents, compressed files, etc. 

Easy to operate. Anybody can recover lost or deleted data from an external or internal HDD, SSD, USB drive, SD card, etc., within 3 steps. 

Compatible. It supports NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, and ReFS and is compatible with Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, and Server.

Step 1. Install and launch MyRecover > carefully connect the Seagate disk to the machine > hover the mouse over it, and click  Scan.

Step 2. During scanning, you can sort, filter and preview scanned files by Type, Size, Date updated, Path, etc.

Step 3. Choose your wanted files > Recover x files.

MyRecover can help you restore the most frequently used formats of files: png/jpg/gif/avi/mp4/mp3/doc/xlsx/ppt/pdf/html/rar/zip, etc. Choose your wanted types by selecting Images, Videos, Documents, etc.

Verdict

This article is a detailed guide to help users fix the Seagate external hard drive showing as RAW issue. With the help of reliable data recovery tools like MyRecover, users can recover data from damaged Seagate external hard drives in a breeze.

To fix this issue, the Error Checking Tool, CHKDSK command, and formatting are worth trying, But please make sure you have recovered the wanted files or backed up the drive before formatting.