"What can I do in order to convert external hard drive from RAW to HFS+ when there are lots of files stored on the external HDD? Every day when I boot my iMac, I will connect my external hard drive to this computer as a backup drive. Today, when I plugged my external hard drive to iMac, Mac OS cannot recognize the external HDD as an external disk. Although the external HDD is still recognized on Mac, it shows as a raw file system. Can I convert this external hard drive from RAW to HFS+ without touching any previous data?"
"I want to change RAW drive to HFS+ file system on my portable hard drive? Can somebody give me some help? It is a 3TB external hard drive that has been used for several years on my Mac computer, but it changes to RAW file system with unknown reason. I have many files stored on this external HDD, so can I recover deleted files from external hard drive after formatting?"
Format raw disk hfs using Disk Utility
More mac format tools -> format hd hfs+ in Mac using 7 free mac format tools
There are over 5 freeware that you may use for recovering files from raw hd on mac and here is just one of them called Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery. The following link contains the download url and tutorials to show you how to use them.
Lazesoft Mac Data Recovery
Download link&guide: Recovering data from raw hd on mac with freeware
You are able to convert an external hard drive from RAW to HFS+ without losing data, but you should take correct measure. One of the most important points is that you cannot overwrite the external hard drive before data recovery. There is no chance to overwrite the external hard drive in principle because you are unable to write new data to the external HDD when it has RAW file system, but you still should be careful. In order to prevent you from writing new data to the external HDD, it is strongly recommended not to format the external HDD before getting back lost files. Then, you can use data recovery software to recover files off a RAW external hard drive.
iCare Data Recovery Pro is a data recovery program for data recovery when you run into the problem that HFS+ external hard drive converts to RAW file system. This data recovery provides a method to deep scan the RAW external hard drive so as to search every inaccessible file. After scanning, the software will show all found files such as images, videos, Microsoft documents, audio files, etc. By using iCare Data Recovery, you are able to recover files from different brands of external hard drives like WD, Seagate, Samsung, Maxtor, Toshiba, Transcend and more. iCare Data Recovery is software that works on Windows OS like Windows XP, Vista, 7, 8 , 10, so you can plug the external hard drive to Windows PC and follow the step-by-step guide below for RAW external hard drive file recovery:
Step1. Download and install iCare Data Recovery on Windows PC. Launch the software and select a proper scan mode.
Step2. Select the RAW external hard drive and then wait the software to scan it for lost files.
Step3. You can preview the found files after scanning and then save the lost files to a safe drive.
After recovering all lost files from RAW external hard drive by using iCare Data Recovery, you can change file system of external hard drive from RAW to HFS+. You can also check and repair possible bad sectors on your external hard drive before formatting in order to prevent the external HDD from changing RAW file system again. Usually, you can choose to format your external hard drive from RAW to NTFS, FAT32 or HFS+ file system as you wish. As you know, HFS+ file system is only recognized on Mac OS, so you should format external hard drive on Mac OS if you need to convert it from RAW to HFS+ file system.
You have something to do in order to avoid data loss when your external HFS+ hard drive changes to RAW file system:
1. Never format the external hard drive before getting back all inaccessible data
You are unable to write even a single file to the external hard drive as long as you do not format it because it is impossible to access the drive when it converts from HFS+ to RAW. As long as there is no new data being written to the external HFS+ HDD, you can use iCare Data Recovery to recover all data.
2. Protect the external HFS+ HDD from being physically damaged
Although you cannot read or write data when external hard drive becomes RAW from HFS plus, you can continue to use this external hard drive after format it from RAW to HFS plus. However, if the external hard drive suffers any physical damage like water damage, fire damage, etc, you will lose the last chance to restore data stored on this external hard drive. iCare Data Recovery is only available for data recovery from external hard drive which is not physically damaged or overwritten.
Last updated on Nov 01, 2022
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