I’m facing a serious issue with my WD My Passport Ultra for Mac portable hard drive. It has around 1.65 TB of important data, and I need help figuring out if I can recover it.
Here’s the problem:
I recently tried accessing my drive, but got the error: “Location is not accessible. The request failed due to a fatal device hardware error.”
I ran the WMIC Diskdrive check to get the drive’s status, and it showed “OK” (as seen in the image).
I tried running CHKDSK with the parameters /f /r, but it came back with “The type of the file system is RAW. CHKDSK is not available for RAW drives.”
In Disk Management, the drive shows up, but the file system is displayed as RAW instead of the usual format. (See the attached image showing Disk 1 with two partitions, both showing RAW).
Is it possible to recover the data from a RAW drive? I’m open to using any tools or software recommendations (free or paid) if they have a good chance of recovering my files. I’m hoping there’s a way without losing the data.
Any guidance or suggestions would be appreciated. Thanks in advance!
Please be informed that Western Digital neither covers Data Recovery under its warranty policy nor has any in-house data recovery service. You may contact any data recovery company of your choice.
Also, have you opened a support case? If not opened, for more information, please contact the WD Technical Support team for the best assistance and troubleshooting:
When a drive becomes RAW, it typically means that the file system has been corrupted or damaged, but the data may still be intact. The first thing you should do is stop writing anything to the drive to prevent overwriting any potentially recoverable data. If you haven’t done so already, disconnect the drive from your computer and avoid using it until you complete the recovery process. Plus, consider using tools like ddrescue or HDDSuperClone to clone the disk or create an image first. There are many data recovery tools that can scan and attempt to recover data from a RAW drive. Here are a few options:
DMDE Free Edition
Recuva
TestDisk&PhotoRec
R-Studio
UFS Explorer
If you’re not comfortable trying recovery software yourself, data recovery services are the best option. They can be expensive, but they have the tools and expertise to recover data from physically damaged or highly corrupted drives.
Make sure to assess the Self-Monitoring, Analysis, and Reporting Technology (SMART) status of your drive as the first step in determining its health and performance. This will provide valuable insights into the overall condition of your drive and help in preventing potential data loss or hardware failure.
Hope this page will help you.
To recover your data, first avoid using the drive to prevent overwriting any files. You can try using data recovery software like Stellar Data Recovery, EaseUS, or Recuva, which are designed to recover files from damaged or corrupted drives. If software recovery doesn’t work then it’s best to consider professional data recovery services.
