3 Ways to Solve "Healthy Primary Partition RAW" in Windows 7, 8, 10, 11

Scenario

"My father bought a WD 1TB external HDD. He copied about 3GB of data onto it. It was plugged into the PC after 2 days and a message came up saying that it has to be formatted. The external hard drive shows "Simple Basic RAW Healthy Primary Partition" on my PC and no drive letter as well. I get the following error message when I try to format it: "Virtual Disk Manager The format did not complete successfully." I just need to format it as NTFS so that I can use it again; I don't care about the data on it. Is it possible to recover the RAW healthy primary partition to NTFS?

What is RAW partition in Windows?

The RAW partition in Windows is a partition without the file systems neither FAT12/FAT16/FAT32 nor NTFS/NTFS5 that can be recognized by Windows operating system.

Besides, RAW disk refers to hard disk accessing at a RAW, binary level, beneath the file system level, and using partition data at the MBR. Sometimes, if a RAW partition shows on your computer, you could not access it, not to mention edit or copy the documentation inside.

How to Fix a RAW Healthy Primary Partition in Windows 7/8/10/11

Why did the healthy primary partition become RAW? Well, the healthy primary RAW partition could be caused by several reasons such as virus infection, format failure, accidental OS shutdown, power outages, etc. But, how to do RAW partition fix easily in Windows 7/8/10/11?

If you are stuck in a RAW partition in an external hard drive or inside a local disk, there are a few ways you could choose from.

Fix #1: Check disk errors on the healthy primary partition

CHKDSK is a command that can be executed from the Command Prompt to check the logical integrity of the file system. The entire name of CHKDSK is "check disk." Its primary job is to confirm that the system or administrative information about files, directories, and similar data stored on a physical disk is valid. Users can type the letter of the instructions to execute the order.

Step 1. Enter "cmd" at the search box on the desktop, and choose Command Prompt. Type the following command and press "Enter" to execute it:

• chkdsk g: /f /r /x (the "g" is the RAW partition that needs to fix)

If you receive this message "Windows has made corrections to the file system. No further action is required" after executing, your RAW partition problem should be solved. Sometimes, you will get an error stating CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives, you can try the next one.

Fix #2: Clean the disk and create a new primary partition

If you don't need the data on that RAW partition, you can go to Diskpart to clean it and create a new partition to replace it.

Step 1. Enter diskpart at the search box on the desktop, right-click it and choose "Run as Administrator".

• list disk
• select disk n (where n is the RAW hard drive)
• attributes disk clear readonly
• clean
• create partition primary
• select partition # (# is the RAW partition)
• active (if it is the boot drive)
• format fs=ntfs label=new quick (or format fs=fat32)
• assign

If it does not work, the below text will give you clue.

Fix #3: Forcefully format the RAW healthy primary partition via freeware

If you have not fixed the healthy primary partition RAW issue in Windows 7/8/10/11 with the above methods, you can try Qiling Disk Master Standard to forcefully format the RAW partition to a recognizable file system. The steps are listed below:

• Free Download
• Windows 11/10/8.1/8/7, 100% Secure

Connect the external hard drive along with the RAW partition to the computer, if the RAW partition is inside of the hard drive, just ignore it.

Step 1. Run the Qiling Disk Master Standard, right-click the healthy primary partition stating RAW and choose "Format Partition" at the drop-down list.

Step 2. Select FAT32, NTFS, or other file systems for your external RAW partition or the inside RAW partition.

Step 3. Press "Proceed" to commit to format the healthy primary partition for RAW problems.

Final words

After several ways, the RAW partition problem would not bother you again. In addition, Qiling Disk Master Professional will provide more powerful functions like allocating free space from one partition to another partition, command-line partitioning, migrating OS between MBR and GPT disks, dynamic disks, and volumes management converting system disk between MBR and GPT, etc.

And if you have Server devices that need a professional disk manager, you can choose the Server Edition.

Related Articles

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• How to Convert Logical Partition to Primary Using Diskpart in Windows 7/8/10?
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• 3 Things You Should Know about EFI System Partition (ESP)
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