How to recover and use a drive with a RAW format.

RAW format usually means the OS can't read / doesn't see any information in the MBR/partition table to recognize any data, so it might be corrupted/erased.

There are ways to possibly re-write the MBR using the fixmbr command in XP or bootrec /fixmbr in Vista/7 both from the Recovery Console. I've never used the Vista/W7 one as we ain't there at work yet, but I have used the XP one and it was successful a few times (not nearly as often as I would hope...) I've also never tried this on an external drive (not allowed @ work for security reasons), but if possible, make DAMN sure to target the correct drive, as it will select your boot drive as stated in the articles.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392 for Vista / W7
http://www.microsoft.com/resources/documentation/window... for XP

I understand either of these two software products can recover the data from a HDD whose File System is corrupted to appear as "RAW". In BOTH cases, I believe, the software will NOT write to the troubled disk, it will only READ from it. That means that all the data it can recover MUST be written to a different disk, so you will need a spare HDD big enough to hold all the recovered data.

Check out GetDataBack NTFS here, and note how their free trial lets you examine all it can recover before you pay your fee and buy the package to complete the recovery process:

http://www.runtime.org/data-recovery-software.htm

Easeus Data Recovery Wizard from here has been used by many:

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/

Note that, at lower right of that web page, you can click on the link "How to recover files from RAW drive?", and it takes you here to show you detailed process:

http://www.easeus.com/datarecoverywizard/recover-raw-dr...

I tried easeus data recovery and it didn't find any files. Having gone the companies web site to find a tutorial. I followed their directions and it found no files, no directories just nothing recoverable. I'm trying "test disk" to rebuild the boot sector and bring back the file system.

I am willing to share my experience with you.
Actually, I have ever encountered the same problem. So, I have searched a lot and finally found a free recovery program recommended by many web friends on the internet. And fortunately, it has recovered all of my photos, videos and files on this RAW drive. I still can remember it offered four recovery options for me to choose, though I had no idea of them. And I pressed the "Files Preview" button to see whether the data is recovered rightly.
You should try it:
http://www.squidoo.com/change-raw-to-ntfs-without-any-d...
Note:
1. Stop using this drive right now to avoid overwrite the original data, which can erase the original data permanently.
2. Save your recovered files on a different storage device in case of recovery failure.
3. Format your drive after the recovery process to see whether it can work well again.
4. Always back up you data in the future.

Thank you so much for your brilliant answer. I just have the same problem on my flac files. I lost over 600GB of ripped music (FLAC files) on an external hard drive when Windows decided to run an overnight update while my computer was running a batch-file conversion on a bunch of old aiff files. The computer could no longer recognize the hard drive or find any files.
The free software showed me that the program could actually find and save those files.
Thanks again and a million times.

I had the exact same problem as you and I really needed to get all of my data back. I looked on some other forums and found that the Photorec software worked the best for me and a lot of other people. My drive was 500gb and I left it searching from 6pm till the next morning around 7:30am. Given that your drive is double the size, I would find a time that you are not at the house or something and let it do its thing. Hope this helps!

Here is where you can download the program:
http://www.cgsecurity.org/wiki/PhotoRec