How to Fix The Volume Does Not Contain a Recognized File System?

To Understand “The Volume Does Not Contain a Recognized File System”

During computer use, the volume does not contain a recognized file system problem occurs now and then. Many users have reported encountering a file system unrecognized problem once before. The results show that this issue happens not only on computer hard drives but also on external devices, such as external hard drives, USB flash drives, and SD cards.

Do you think it’s an annoying thing? Now, we’d like to tell you the good news – this problem can be fixed and all data saved on the inaccessible drive can be recovered. Later in this article, we’ll show you the way to recover data from broken flash drive.

To sum up, the following reasons could lead to file system unrecognized problems:

• reinstallation of system;
• getting attacked by a virus;
• users’ misapplication;
• abnormal shutdown of computer;
• file system conversion failure;
• accidental deletion of necessary system files;
• physical failures like bad sector;
• unstable or insufficient power supply.

Please pay much attention to those aspects so as to try to avoid data loss and the cumbersome RAW partition recovery work. Now, let’s take a look at the following 3 cases of this file system not recognized problem.

#1. Fail to Access a Drive and Then See a Windows Prompt

You open the computer as usual and then double-click a hard drive partition, hoping to enter it and access files. At this time, a dialog box appears surprisingly, telling you that this partition is not accessible. It also says “The volume does not contain a recognized file system”. And you have no choice but to click “OK” to give up on entering this partition.

In most cases, above mentioned phenomenon occurs in hard disks because the partition table is damaged. So, it is similar to a new partition which has not been formatted yet. In this case, you must format the partition again to make it back to normal.

Click to Tweet

#2. Hard Disk Suddenly Become RAW

The second situation is that the external hard disk suddenly becomes RAW when you access it from a normal working computer. This may happen if you have ever forcibly unplugged your external hard drive from a computer.

Once a partition or a disk becomes RAW, users are unable to access it as well as files stored on it. However, similar to the first situation, the partition or disk can only become usable after formatting. Therefore, you are also suggested to recover files from the RAW partition first to avoid secondary damage to the stored data before carrying out any measures to fix the RAW file system problem.

Guide to Recover Data from RAW Hard Drive/RAW Partition

Want to recover data from RAW drive or RAW partition without any trouble? Try this powerful data recovery tool we recommend in this post.

Read More

#3. USB Device Become Inaccessible

Removable devices are a little bit like external hard drives. They have the following features in common:

• good portability;
• small size;
• high security.

The difference lies in that the capacity and size of external hard drives are usually larger than that of other removable disks like USB flash drives and SD cards.

When you fail to access a removable device, don’t rush to consider reformatting (since it will damage all your data).

What you should do? Close the prompt window and then try the following methods after you find your USB flash drive or SD card suddenly became RAW in the computer.

>> When a USB flash drive becomes RAW:

• Launch WinHex and open the disk under the tool menu. Try to open your USB flash drive directly. If this works, you’ll be able to browse your folders and files. At this time, you only need to copy them out to another safe location.
• If your USB flash drive is formatted with exFAT, you need to download and install the appropriate disk format support package before you can browse files in it.
• If your USB flash drive is formatted with common file systems like FAT and NTFS, you may need to check the device interface and computer USB interface.
• If the file system of the USB flash drive is damaged, RAW partition recovery is unavoidable.

Top Recommendation

When you find a USB flash drive not recognized by the computer at all, please turn to USB Flash Drive Not Recognized – Don’t Worry Too Much; it will teach you how to fix it exactly.

>> When an SD card becomes inaccessible:

• If the volume does not contain a recognized file system error occurs on your mobile phone/camera SD card, you may as well turn it off and wait for some time to restart it to see whether this problem has been fixed or not.
• If it doesn’t work, you have the right to suspect CPU, newly installed programs, or optimization operations.
• Of course, the widespread computer virus can travel a long way to attack your SD card. So, please be careful when you connect your SD card device to the internet or try to manage the card on others’ computers.

Undoubtedly, MiniTool Power Data Recovery is also helpful for SD card recovery in different cases.

Recover Data from RAW Partition

No matter what you decide to do after encountering the volume does not contain a recognized file system error, you’re advised to recover data from it first. Otherwise, you may lose your needed data forever and it leaves you no chance to regret it.

If there are no crucial files stored on the RAW partition, you can skip the data recovery process to fix the error. However, those saved files might become irrecoverable because of data overwriting in the repair process.

Choose a Proper Tool to Recover Data from the RAW Partition

Choosing a reliable and professional data recovery tool should be the first thing. As there are numerous secure data recovery services, you should appraise them based on your requirements and choose one that suits you best. Aspects, such as compatibility, functionality, technical support, cost and effectiveness, etc., should be considered.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery is highly recommended as it is widely compatible with Windows operating systems and other data storage devices that can be recognized by Windows, such as USB drives, SD cards, memory sticks, CDs, and more. Additionally, it can detect and recover types of files from a device, including documents, pictures, videos, audio, compressed folders, and other files.

No matter whether your files are lost due to mistaken deletion, malware attacks, partition loss, disk formatting, device failure, or other causes, MiniTool Power Data Recovery is able to restore them as long as they are not overwritten by any new files. You can get MiniTool Power Data Recovery Free to detect the RAW partition and try to recover files from it.

MiniTool Power Data Recovery FreeClick to Download100%Clean & Safe

Start Data Recovery from Not Recognized File System

Suppose you have downloaded and installed MiniTool Power Data Recovery on your computer, you can work with the following three steps to recover data from RAW partition.

Step 1. Launch the software to enter the main interface. The RAW partition usually shows as an Unidentified partition on the main interface under the Logical Drives section. Select the target partition and click Scan to start the detecting process.

Step 2. Wait for the scan process to complete itself. On the result page, there are several features provided, helping to filter out unnecessary files.

The Filter, Type, and Search can be used to exclude unwanted files and pinpoint specific files by setting filter conditions or searching for the file name. The Preview feature helps to verify the file content to ensure the chosen file is the one you really need.

Step 3. Choose all the files you need on the result page and click Save to select a new destination for those files. The chosen file restoration path should be different from the original one to avoid data overwriting.

This is the complete guide to complete the RAW partition recovery with the help of MiniTool Power Data Recovery. The free edition of this tool provides only 1GB of free file recovery capacity. You can visit the License Comparison page to select an advanced edition which contains a larger data recovery capacity.

Camera Says Card Cannot Be Accessed? Here Is a Fix Guide

Stay calm when camera says card cannot be accessed suddenly; then, take measures in time to carry out camera card recovery.

Read More

Click to Tweet

Try to Avoid Volume Does Not Contain a Recognized File System Error

Though this powerful data recovery program could help you get back all of your important data from RAW partition under the condition that they’re not covered by new data, there is still a chance that you could lose them forever. So, please try your best to avoid the volume does not contain a recognized file system error so as to avert unnecessary troubles.

Things you should notice:

• Do not unplug your removable device from the computer forcibly.
• Don’t connect your removable drive to and manage it on a computer arbitrarily unless you can confirm its security.
• Don’t open unsolicited emails and links without checking their safety.
• Choose to manage a computer hard drive/removable disk with the help of reliable software if you really need an assistant.
• Remember to back up your important data regularly to a safe location.

Hope you all can get rid of the disturbing RAW partition error and data loss problem.

A Closer Look at File System

With an assigned name, computer file is a set of collections of associated character streams or associated records. A file consists of two parts: file body (the real file information) and file description (file storage and management information).

In an operating system, file system usually refers to the program and data associated with file management. It is responsible for creating, revoking, reading/writing, modifying and copying files, and accessing files by name. Meanwhile, the file system plays an important role in file organization and access control.

Generally speaking, a file system is a directory structure included in a disk (such as CD-ROM, floppy disk, flash drive, and other storage device) or partition and used to organize files in that disk. An available disk device can comprise one or more file systems. Anyone who wants to enter a drive must mount the file system at the very beginning.

File System Characteristics

A common file system has the following wonderful features:

• User-friendly: users only need to manipulate files, regardless of the file structure and physical storage location.
• User-transparent: files are saved and accessed by name, and it is transparent to users. Some files can be shared by multiple users or processes.

If you want to understand the file system clearly, the following aspects are important:

Storage media: hard disk drives, floppy disks, flash drives, and network storage devices are all able to be adopted by users to save personal data.

Division of disk: division is for large-capacity storage devices (mainly refers to hard drives). For a large hard drive, we need to consider reasonable partitioning. This is why division is involved.

In Windows and Dos, fdisk is usually used to divide hard drives. Besides, many hard drive management tools are designed to help users manage and make the best use of their computer hard drive.

File system mounting: in Unix-like operating systems, a file system can only be put into use after mounting. In Windows, the situation is the same. Apart from that, mount point is essential.

Visual geometry: used to organize and arrange file storage and access, file system is also visible. In Linux, we can see its structure through tools.

What Is RAW File System

A disk partition not formatted by the NT file system is called a RAW partition. If you check the properties of a RAW partition, you’ll find both the used space and unused space are displayed as “0“. A RAW file system is just regarded by the OS as an uninitialized drive, so you’re not allowed to access it or use it for data storage.

So, what are the possible causes for an unrecognized drive?

System reinstallation is one of the major reasons for the appearance of an unrecognized file system. If you see a few unrecognized partitions right after you have finished installing your OS, the real file system is probably exFAT; this format is not supported by an OS that hasn’t been updated in time.

Besides, the RAW file system could easily appear on a computer hard drive/removable device after virus invasion, MBR damage, or partition table failure.

Summary

Though we have offered suggestions to help you prevent “the volume does not contain a recognized file system” problem, it can’t be avoided completely. In other words, it happens sometimes out of the blue.

But don’t worry, after you tried the solutions we mentioned above, you’ll be able to recover data from your inaccessible drive successfully. After the recovery, you can try every means (repair the hard disk boot record, rebuild the partition table, and reformat the unrecognized drive) to fix the problem for further use. If you are confronting any problems when using MiniTool software, please let us know via [email protected].