Convert is not available for RAW drives in Windows 10/8/7
RAW drive
RAW drive also calls RAW file system, RAW file system simply means that the file system is not recognized by Windows OS. Therefore all the available file system drivers are unable to mount the file system as a drive. This often happens when the records determining the file system type or location on the disk are damaged or corrupted, usually the partition table (MBR) or the boot sector (DBR).
Common scenarios for RAW drives
Sometimes a damaged volume may lose its file system type. Various error messages may appear, most common being:
The volume X: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?
The disk in drive X: is not formatted.
The volume does not contain a recognized file system
Drive not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
There was an error accessing drive X:. The disk is not formatted.
Convert is not available for RAW drives
Convert is a command that is used to change file system from FAT32/exFAT to NTFS in Windows 10/8/7.
When the partition became RAW, some users would use convert command to change file system from RAW to FAT32/NTFS, for example: convert F: /fs:ntfs, but Windows reports:Convert is not available for RAW drives.
How to fix RAW partition?
There are several solutions to fix RAW partition or recover data from RAW partition.
Solution 1: Fix RAW partition with chkdsk /f command
Step 1: Go to the start menu, type in "cmd" in the search bar.
Step 2: Right click cmd.exe and choose "Run as Administrator".
Step 3: Type "chkdsk X: (the drive letter) /f " in the command window to fix RAW drive.
Sometimes, chkdsk reports: The type of the file system is RAW. chkdsk is not available for RAW drives so that RAW partition cannot be fixed with chkdsk command.
Solution 2: RAW partition recovery
M3 Data Recovery is a RAW partition recovery and RAW drive data recovery software which can do RAW partition recovery - change/convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32 without data loss or recover data from RAW drive in Windows 10/8/7.
Step 1: Install and launch M3 Data Recovery. After that, please select RAW Drive Recovery module.
Step 2: Choose the RAW partition.
Step 3: Click Next to scan the RAW drive you want to recover or fix.
Step 4: After fixing RAW drive, please check the files in RAW drive before recovering.
Step 5: Click "Fix Drive" to solve "Convert is not available for RAW drives", you will see RAW drive will become NTFS/FAT32 file system and you can acess data in it as normal.
Solution 3: RAW drive data recovery
Since the RAW drive cannot be converted to NTFS/FAT32/exFAT via command line and M3 Data Recovery, the only method to recover data is to perform RAW drived data recovery that is the process of retrieving files and folders from inaccessible partitions or volumes without modifying or damaging original data. The recovery process is read-only, reliable and safe.
It is highly recommended to use M3 Data Recovery to do RAW drive data recovery. In many cases, M3 Data Recovery is able to display files and folders from RAW hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, etc. as long as RAW drive is not physically damaged.
Step 1: Choose the Data Recovery module on M3 Data Recovery home window.
Step 2: Choose RAW drive and click Next to scan, All files will be found in minutes.
Step 3: Select the files you want to recover from RAW drive and then save them.
Solution 4: Convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32 with Disk Management
If there is no important data in RAW drive, format is the best choice to convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32/exFAT, just right click RAW drive in My Computer (This PC) or Disk Management and then select "Format..." to reformat it.
Step 1: Right click RAW drive in My Computer (This PC) or Disk Management.
Step 2: Select "Format...".
Step 3: Select NTFS file system and then set other information (Allocation unit size, volume label, format options) about format
Step 5: Click Start to reformat RAW drive to NTFS.
If there is important data in RAW drive, just follow solution 3 to recover data from RAW drive and then reformat it after data recovery is successfully done.
Solution 5: Diskpart convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32
Sometimes Disk Management cannot format RAW drive and reports error like "The format did not complete successfully". In this situation, we can try DiskPart command to convert RAW to NTFS/FAT32. One thing we should notice is that the converting process will erase all data on RAW drive, so we must recover data from RAW partition before trying following steps.
Step 1: Go to the start menu, type in "diskpart" in the search bar.
Step 2: Right click diskpart and choose "Run as Administrator".
Step 3: Type list disk
Step 4: Type select disk x (x is the hard disk number of the RAW drive)
Step 5: Type list partition
Step 6: Type select partition x (x is the partition number of the RAW drive)
Step 7: Type format fs=ntfs quick, it will do a quick format on the disk and format RAW partition to NTFS. If you want to convert RAW to FAT32, then replace ntfs with FAT32
If Windows Disk Management and diskpart command are unable to format RAW drive, the RAW drive should have hardware issue, please try the 3rd-party professional format software or low-level format tool.