Summary: Hard drive corruption occurs due to file system errors that turn a hard drive RAW. These errors are caused by bad sectors, sudden system shutdown (crash), software or hardware issues, and sometimes due to physical damage. To repair a corrupt hard disk, you can format it, which is the simplest way to repair a corrupt drive. But, it causes permanent data loss. However, you can recover your lost data with the help of Stellar Data Recovery software.
Thus, today we are going to discuss the steps that can fix hard drive corruption without formatting the drive. In other words, steps to repair a corrupt hard disk without losing the data.
CAUTION: Windows may display prompt to format the corrupt (RAW) drive volume when you connect it or turn on the system. Click ‘Cancel’. DO NOT CLICK ‘FORMAT’ as it will result in permanent data loss.
What Causes Hard Drive Corruption?
When a drive is formatted with a file system such as NTFS, FAT16/32, exFAT, etc., it creates a table where file records are stored. NTFS creates Master File Table (MFT) while FAT file systems stores these records in File Allocation Table (FAT). After format, every file you cut/copy/paste enters a record in the table.
These file records contain the physical address of the file on the hard drive along with other file details such as file format, creation date, modification date, size, etc.
So when a drive is connected to the system, the OS reads the file system’s table and displays the contained files and folders along with the details fetched from the table. When this table is damaged, the OS can’t recognize the file system and thus, shows drive as RAW.
Did You Know: Your personal data can be recovered from corrupt or formatted drives and put you at risk of data theft. Wipe your hard disk for guaranteed safety. Learn how
Steps to Repair Corrupted Hard Disk without Formatting
Follow these steps to repair corrupt hard disk without formatting, and get back the data.
Step 1: Run Antivirus Scan
Connect the hard drive to a Windows PC and use a reliable antivirus/malware tool to scan the drive or the system. Sometimes, viruses and malware can cause such errors. Thus, an antivirus scan may repair corrupt hard drive and make the drive accessible.
Step 2: Run CHKDSK Scan
CHKDSK scan is good for the storage drive and you should run it every once in a while. The CHKDSK marks the bad sectors and prevents data corruption by fixing the file system errors.
Follow the instructions below to run CHKDSK scan and repair corrupt hard drive without formatting:
- Open an elevated Command Prompt window
- Make sure the corrupt drive is connected to the system
- Assign a letter to the corrupt drive via Disk Management tool, if it doesn’t have one
- Then type chkdsk /r /f X: where X is the drive letter. Replace X with your corrupt drive letter and press ‘Enter.’
- Wait for it to finish and then restart the system to check if the drive is accessible.
NOTE: If you see a warning message such as shown in the below screenshot, press ‘Y’ on keyboard and then the ‘Enter’ key.
IMPORTANT NOTE: Bad sectors can cause drive failure, and there is no way to repair bad sectors besides CHKDSK scan to prevent data corruption and drive errors.
Step 3: Run SFC Scan
SFC scan helps fix the damaged or missing Windows system files that may cause drive corruption. The scan checks system file integrity and replaces a corrupt or damaged system file with a cached copy stored within the system.
- To run the SFC scan, open an elevated Command Prompt window and type sfc /scannow
- If the drive is external, type sfc /SCANNOW /OFFBOOTDIR=c:\ /OFFWINDIR=c:\windows
- Replace letter c: with your hard drive letter.
That’s it. Wait for the scan to finish and then restart the system. Check if you can access the drive now.
Step 4: Use a Data Recovery Tool
It’s quite possible that the above steps fail to repair the corrupt hard drive. Sometimes, the corruption is severe, and the methods mentioned above can only fix a few minor drive corruption issues.
However, a data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery Standard can quickly restore files from severely corrupt and formatted hard drives or deleted partitions. While Windows may not recognize a corrupt hard drive as usable, this software natively supports recovery from a corrupt (RAW) hard drive.
Just follow the steps mentioned in the video to get back the data quickly.
Now that you have recovered data from the corrupt hard drive, format the drive to repair it.
Open Disk Management tool, format the RAW (corrupt) drive, and then transfer the recovered data.
Conclusion
Hard drive corruption is a logical issue, which is one of the common reasons for data loss across the globe. However, you safeguard your hard drive safe from corruption by following the best practices we discussed in this post.
But if it happens, follow the steps we explained in this post to repair corrupt drive without formatting, and get back your crucial data.
Also Read: Fix corrupted external Mac hard drive without formatting
How can I apply this chkdsk to a system that primary drive c is bad, please? It is a work station that has two slots for different hard drives. I had to put another pc drive in the slot containing the 500GB that has a bad partition. Now, in this case, chkdsk does not work as intended probably due to the drive belonging to another computer. Please how do I repair this drive successfully? Thanks.
Hi Andy, You can try Stellar Data Recovery Professional software. In this case, you can recover data from the severely corrupted drive as well. However, we do not have any software to repair the drive. You can use the Can’t Find Drive option to scan as well. Thanks
Hi, am almost losing my files in an external hard drive. it’s showing the disk is corrupted and not readable. Have formatted one local disk and tried to follow this platform whereby have downloaded the software (Stellar) yet at the point of recovery it requires an activation key. How can I go about this?
Hi William, if your data is seeing in preview then you will need an activation key to recover data. You can get the activation key via the click on the cart option by clicking on the top left-hand side icon. It will redirect you to the buy page. There you can purchase it and recover the data efficiently. Thanks
Hi, Got a message in dos. Errors found. Chkdsk cannot continue in read-only mode. This is an external hard drive. I was downloading to it and the power went out. Hard drive is now dirty. Windows error check does not work. windows error check scanned for over 6 hours and then closed with no message. Windows 7 computer. USB 3.0 hard drive.
Hi Gray, it seems like that drive has some bad sectors or primary sing of corruption. In this case, you can try the demo version of Stellar Data Recovery Professional for Windows as the drive is corrupted and can recover your data. After, you can take it to the nearest service center for repair. Thanks
Hi, I have an error on my system STOP CODE: CRITICAL SYSTEM DIED, unable to go to safe mode, unable to do a system restore, gives error: you must enable system protection for this drive c: this is a yellow reclamation mark. Not even able to do reset the PC, Please help.
Hello if the system is not able to start in safe mode, then RUN DISM command to repair corrupt system image, perform clean boot action, or can uninstall the latest installed software. Sometimes it makes a problem. Thanks
Good evening, I did everything as written here but still doesn’t work. The Stellar Program too did find my sd card but just can”t find any data when I know there is (“no data found”) so I don’t know what to do anymore: Have any solution for me?
Hi if manual steps did not work for you then it may be possible the physical error in your SD card. Stellar Data Recovery can recover data from storage drives when it shows in disk management. Thanks
Hi, I had bad sectors in my hard drive and it became very crucial for me to recover my data from it. Then I tried your software and recovered my data efficiently. Thank you so much. I really appreciated it.
Hello Mohammed, Thanks for sharing your experience. We glad to know you have recovered your data with stellar data recovery standard.
Thanks for post 🙂
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