What's with RAW ?

This is the fourth time I've had hard drive problems and the term RAW has popped up.

I don't know (can't tell) if it is due to a virus or spyware but something changes the hard drive type to RAW and all is lost.

How I know that the drive/partition is RAW, is from diagnostic software, Ontrack's Recovery and Partition Manger.

The computer won't boot, can't find certain necessary files, can't find the hard drive and any attempt to reformat says invalid media type!

HOW did this hapen?

Ontrack will recover some (all?) of the files, but when I use Partition Manager to reformat or delete the offending partition (usually C: and NTFS), the recovery partition, if there is one, (usually D:and FAT32) seems to be OK, PM says it can't reformat OR delete the C: ex-NTFS, RAW partition!

I have up to date Virus scanner and spyware but every once in a while on my computer once, and on four friends computers in the past something is acquired that goes and changes the hard drive type to RAW!

Can anyone shed some light and what is there that can be done to prevent this or can I change the type back to NTFS??

thanks chris

thanks