▷ Chkdsk is not available for raw units 【solution】

CHKDSK is a utility that is used to analyze, verify and repair the storage units of our computer. When a storage unit loses its format (it remains in RAW state) and we try to apply this command it shows us an error: "CHKDSK is not available for RAW units". In this article we will explain possible solutions to recover these types of units.

Index of contents

What is a RAW drive

When a drive appears in RAW format, it means it has lost its file format. This means that we will not be able to access the files contained in this unit. A drive can become RAW for various reasons:

• Because it has serious physical errors (it is close to a definitive failure) For having removed a USB device and another without first choosing the safe removal option Another type of errors of various kinds

This can occur both on complete hard drives and on certain partitions. What's more, sometimes we won't even be able to reformat them again using normal procedures.

Why the error CHKDSK occurs is not available for RAW drives

CHKDSK is a tool that when run looks for the drive's file system to have logical integrity. when it finds faults in this integrity the tool will try to repair them. For the CHKDSK to work on the drives they must have a known format. Because a RAW drive does not have this requirement, it will display the error: CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.

To try to correct this error, the first thing we can try is to execute the command adding certain options.

First of all, we must run CMD with administrator permissions. For this, we go to the beginning and write "CMD". Select with the right button and choose "run as administrator"

Next, we must execute the command:

chkdsk: / f / r

Where it means the letter that represents the unit that we want to repair.

You can learn more about the CHKDSK tool in our tutorial:

If this does not work, we will go on to list a series of possible solutions to recover the damaged drive.

Reformat using the Windows "Format" option

Warning: We will lose all the files on the hard drive and you will have to use specific software to try to recover them.

For trying it not to be missed. In some cases it is possible to recover the disk format using the typical Windows tool. For this we do not direct "this team" within the file explorer and by right-clicking we will have the option to "format".

We choose the NFTS or FAT32 options if we have a pen drive and we format it. There is a possibility that the drive will recover the format.

Reformat using the DiskPart tool

From now on the selected disk will be formatted, so you must be sure that you have selected the correct one

Diskpart is a powerful hard drive formatting tool. If with this tool we do not solve this error, we have it raw. It is free software that we can download from this website. Its installation is very simple and we will only have to choose the installation directory, the rest will be to click next.

To know how this tool works we have a tutorial that teaches you how it works and some utilities.

We will proceed to explain what we should do:

• We run CMD again with administrator permissions, as we mentioned before. Now we write the following line on the command line:

  diskpart

  

• In this way, the program will be opened and we will have control over it. Now:

list disk

• We will locate the hard disk damaged by its storage capacity.

select disk

• We will replace by the number of the hard disk that interests us. Just the number

From now on the selected disk will be formatted, so you must be sure that you have selected the correct one

• Now we execute the following sequence of commands:

clean create partition primary format fs = NTFS quick assign

Make special reference to the quick format mode (quick) since in this way we will have possibilities to recover the files from the hard disk using some file recovery program.

• If everything went well, our hard drive will be formatted again and we can use it again. To leave we write:

exit

Recover files from reformatted hard drive

A few days ago we had Remo Recover in our hands to do a complete review of all your options. Remo Recover is an excellent program to recover files that we have lost from our storage drives. The only downside is that it is paid, but it works especially well recovering files from USB flash drives.

We recommend that you visit our article on:

If this software does not convince you, we also have another article on recovering deleted or lost files in Windows 10. In it we cite other applications for the recovery of lost files on hard drives. The problem is that almost all of them are paid.

We recommend the software object of our review, since, at least we know first hand of the options that we have to recover files

So far, these are the best solutions to solve the problems of a drive in RAW state when we run into the error: CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives in Windows 10.

We hope you can solve your problem with the options that we have given here. Surely there are many more valid options, if you find any, do not hesitate to leave it in the comments, everything is learned.