Disk Drive Not Formatted Error – Recover Files off External Hard Drive When It Needs to Be Formatted

Is It Possible to Fix Disk Drive Not Formatted Error without Data Loss?

Question: I transferred all data from my laptop hard drive D to an external hard drive, but I was unable to open the external hard drive when I connected it to the company’s computer. Windows said an error message "You need to format disk in drive F before you can use it". I can’t understand why it said such a message since I was still able to open the external hard drive on my laptop last night. Then I connected the external drive to my laptop just now when I came back home, but I also get another message "Disk in drive G is not formatted do you want to format itnow?" I don’t want to format the drive because I don’t want to lose all data inside it. But I get another message when I refused to format the drive "G: is not accessible." Please help me out and recover the external hard drive.

Answer: Did you check the file type of your external hard drive? Does the file system show as RAW? The situation above is usually called not formatted error. Not formatted error often shows as "You need to format disk in drive F before you can use it" under Windows7 operating system and "Disk in drive G is not formatted do you want to format it now?" under Win XP operating system. It doesn’t which OS your computer is running; all lost files are recoverable with not format recovery program. 

First Not Format Recovery Freeware (Recommend)

Second Not Format Recovery Freeware

How Could I Restore Files from External Hard Drive That Needs to Be Formatted?

Question: Once I plug my external hard drive into my PC USB port, it always shows me this message "you need to format the disk drive before you can use it". The files system has become RAW that was FAT32 before. How could I restore files from this RAW external hard drive? If is possible to recover the lost files, should I restore different types of files respectively because there are pictures, music, videos and some other files on the drive?

Answer: RAW drive recovery is possible with RAW drive recovery software. As there are numbers of RAW drive recovery, some of which are freeware while the rest are shareware. Among so much recovery software, you need to recover different types of files respectively with some software. However, you can recover all types of files with one time by using some advanced RAW drive recovery software. 

Is It Still Possible to Recover Data If I formatted the External Hard Drive?

Question: My external hard drive showed not formatted error on my laptop, so I formatted it and it works well now. But all data inside the drive are lost. I have no idea if it is possible to recover those lost data after I formatted external hard drive? 

Answer: You should have not formatted the drive when it shows not formatted error since you will overwrite the data inside after formatting. Therefore, the chance of data recovery is not so good in this case. However, it may be still possible to recover some data if you have a try with not format recovery software. 

More Information on Not Formatted Error

Question: My external hard drive is inaccessible because it always shows disk drive is not formatted do you want to format it now. My friend told me this is not formatted error. I searched for some information about not formatted error online, but somebody said it is RAW file system. So I want to know more information on not formatted error.  

Answer: When external hard drive shows not formatted error, the file system is shown as RAW. You only need to format the drive to make it usable again if you don’t care about the data inside the drive. Otherwise, you should recover data first and then format the drive.

References

Recover Data from Not Formatted External Hard Drive
External hard drive shows not formatted error, how to fix external hard drive not formatted error with data back…
RAW External Hard Drive Recovery
The reasons for external hard drive RAW and methods to solve external hard drive RAW problem…
Not Formatted Error –Restore Data from Not Formatted Error
What is not formatted error? How is it possible to recover files when external hard drive shows not formatted error…
External Hard Drive Recovery
Freeware to recover files from external hard drive after deleting, formatting or has not formatted error…
USB Drive Not Formatted Error
Recover photos & data from USB flash drive and solve USB flash drive not formatted error…
External Hard Drive Format Recovery
Free restore files from formatted external hard drive…Things you need to pay attention to when you perform format recovery on external hard drive…