CHKDSK says an NTFS disk is RAW!

I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks

Alek wrote:
I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks


It's probably got a corrupt MBR/ partition-table; so CHKDSK just calls
it RAW.
Find out the manufacturer and google for their diagnostic program.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote on 3/9/2015 2:25 PM:
Alek wrote:
I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks


It's probably got a corrupt MBR/ partition-table; so CHKDSK just calls
it RAW.
Find out the manufacturer and google for their diagnostic program.

If the problem were a corrupt partition table, would Disk Management
still be able to show the partitions like those on my other HD?

It's WD. Interestingly, I was able to access and copy file from it to
another HD, so I'm assuming it's a bad MBR. Dell is sending me a
replacement so when that works, I'll just wipe the old one and send it back.

Thanks.

Alek wrote:
Ed Cryer wrote on 3/9/2015 2:25 PM:
Alek wrote:
I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks


It's probably got a corrupt MBR/ partition-table; so CHKDSK just calls
it RAW.
Find out the manufacturer and google for their diagnostic program.

If the problem were a corrupt partition table, would Disk Management
still be able to show the partitions like those on my other HD?

It's WD. Interestingly, I was able to access and copy file from it to
another HD, so I'm assuming it's a bad MBR. Dell is sending me a
replacement so when that works, I'll just wipe the old one and send it back.

Thanks.


In the UK it's legally mandatory for suppliers to erase all returned
hard drives before passing them on, even back to the manufacturers.
Sounds good, but I wonder if they all comply.

Ed

Ed Cryer wrote on 3/9/2015 2:25 PM:
Alek wrote:
I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks


It's probably got a corrupt MBR/ partition-table; so CHKDSK just calls
it RAW.
Find out the manufacturer and google for their diagnostic program.

I ran the WD LifeGuard diagnostics and it passed! I guess they don't
check the MBR???

Stormin' Norman wrote on 3/9/2015 6:48 PM:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 11:22:27 -0400, Alek wrote:

I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

If the drive is failing, all bets are off and you could easily have a corrupted
partition table which could account for the drive being seen as RAW as opposed
the NTFS on your USB subsystem.

Do you have a current backup or do you need to recover data from the drive? If
you need to try and recover data, take a look at the FREE Easeus Data Recovery
Wizard. I have used it previously and it is quite capable.

See:

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm


Thanks, Norman. Only CHKDSK says RAW. Drive Mgmt says NTFS. I was able
to simply copy a bunch of directories from it to another HD.

Alek wrote:
Stormin' Norman wrote on 3/9/2015 6:48 PM:
On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 11:22:27 -0400, Alek wrote:

I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?
If the drive is failing, all bets are off and you could easily have a corrupted
partition table which could account for the drive being seen as RAW as opposed
the NTFS on your USB subsystem.

Do you have a current backup or do you need to recover data from the drive? If
you need to try and recover data, take a look at the FREE Easeus Data Recovery
Wizard. I have used it previously and it is quite capable.

See:

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywi...y-software.htm


Thanks, Norman. Only CHKDSK says RAW. Drive Mgmt says NTFS. I was able
to simply copy a bunch of directories from it to another HD.

The blogger here seems to think it's likely to be a problem
with the first sector of the actual partition. Like the NTFS
string is missing, that sort of thing.

http://blogs.technet.com/b/ganand/ar...le-system.aspx

There are a couple of key sectors. Sector 0 on the disk holds
the MBR (on an MBR partitioned disk, it would be fairly
important). There is a pointer in the MBR, to where a
particular partition starts. And the first sector
of that partition, has the NTFS string showing near the
beginning. That's what I use, when computing the offset
of a partition for loopback mounting in Linux, and I need
to verify I'm at the correct location. You can see the NTFS
at the beginning in the pictures.

http://blogs.technet.com/blogfiles/g...isk2_thumb.jpg

That sector is also the sort of thing that TestDisk would be
looking for. TestDisk knows the sector will be at particular
offsets (multiples of a cylinder, or multiples of a megabyte,
depending on which OS made the partition structure). So TestDisk
does not have to read the entire disk, just a fair portion of it.
If a disk has only been used in WinXP for example, you know
it can't possibly have any partitions on 1MB boundaries,
so you can answer No to any peculiar questions about Vista.

If that sector was damaged, and you couldn't get the data,
then you'd need to learn whether NTFS has any way to
regenerate the contents. The $MFT has a partner $MFTMirr
for example, as a backup copy of the first bits of
the MFT (Master File Table). I don't know if the file system
header is duplicated anywhere or not. But TestDisk would
be the best way to work on it, as TestDisk is free.

If you can copy the data off the disk at the file level,
and you seem to be getting all the data, then you don't
need to learn anything. It would then be "Nuke and Pave" time.
Just format it again, to clean it up.

*******

And I'm really surprised this question is coming up in
a Windows 8 group. Windows 8 has some features added to
the OS, a form of "continuous maintenance" for disks.
One claim is, you "don't need CHKDSK", because
Microsoft is checking the disk for consistency
while you're working with it. But obviously in
your case, something happened, which the
checks and balances have not detected. Pretty
weird. I could see this happening on say WinXP,
which doesn't have such a feature to the same
extent. But an "armored" OS such as Win8,
you'd expect such a thing to be practically
impossible.

One possible explanation, is the particular sector
has gone bad, and the error detection scheme on the
disk didn't detect it.

The cynic in me, suspects it's *because* of the
Microsoft robustness design, that this has happened.
It's just a matter of figuring out how. There's really
no reason for the thing to be fiddling with the first
sector of the partition.

Now, if I had this happen to me, I'd have a couple
possible responses.

1) Replace the disk. Then verify the disk operation
with various other tests, at my leisure. If the disk
seems to be behaving itself, maybe it gets used
for important work again later on.

2) Move the partition a little bit. If I thought there
was a problem with that small area of the disk, I could
move the beginning of the partition by a cylinder or two.

One way I judge the health of a disk is with an HDTune
benchmark. Even if the SMART statistics are not being
perfectly honest about reallocated sectors, if you see
significant and long "dips" in the HDTune read benchmark,
that can tell you there are lots of substituted sectors
in that area of the disk. I have one Seagate here, where
around a 70GB swath was giving lower than normal transfer
speeds. Even though the SMART values said the disk was
"perfect", it obviously wasn't perfect, and that disk
got retired.

HTH,
Paul

Paul wrote on 3/9/2015 6:01 PM:
Alek wrote:
I have a hard disk that is failing do I replaced it and attached it via USB.

I then attempted to run CHKDSK on it (drive K and CHKDSK reported that
it has RAW format and CHKDSK couldn't run!

I went in to Disk Management and looked at that disk: every partition
was NTFS!!!

Any ideas as to what is wrong?

Thanks

Run TestDisk.

Do not change anything, until you're *absolutely* sure
the computed MBR is correct.

http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/TestDisk_Step_By_Step

Well I finally ran testdisk. Impressive.

It said Warning: Bad ending head (CHS and LBA don't match)
No partition is bootable.

However, because I was able to copy what I wanted from that disk, the
question is now moot.

Thanks for the suggestions.