Welcome to the Tweaking4All community forums!
When participating, please keep the Forum Rules in mind!
Topics for particular software or systems: Start your topic link with the name of the application or system.
For example “MacOS X – Your question“, or “MS Word – Your Tip or Trick“.
Please note that switching to another language when reading a post will not bring you to the same post, in Dutch, as there is no translation for that post!
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?
Oh boy - that does not sound good. You may have to resort to recovery tools or recovery services (often not cheap).
The fact that it shows as RAW means that Windows no longer recognizes the filesystem.
I'd personally start with a trail version of, for example, Easeus Data Recovery software.
Be careful though and mindful when using tools like these, and keep in mind that most of these tools are expensive (Easeus being an exception).
Steps recommended by an article on iFixit:
