How to Recover Data from an Unallocated Disk Drive?
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Written By Santosh Kumar Gupta
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Approved By Tanushree Chatterjee
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Updated on 19 Jul, 2022 -
Min Reading 4 Min - Share
Summary: What is unallocated disk drive? Why my drive is showing this status in disk management? What am I supposed to do now to fix this issue? Are these questions bothering you? Here you will get all your questions answered. Read this blog to know how you can fix unallocated disk drive issue using some simple methods. Also find out how Stellar Windows data recovery software can help you recover the lost data from unallocated drive.
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| “Recently, when I connected my external Seagate hard drive to my PC, it did not appear in File Explorer. I checked the USB cable, connected the storage drive to a different USB port, and even restarted my system. But, nothing worked. Finally, I opened Disk Management and checked that the drive was detected with the status unallocated. I am not able to access some essential data stored on the drive. Please suggest a way to recover my data from the ‘unallocated disk drive’. Thanks.” |
An external storage drive becomes unallocated when its file system turns corrupt. This happens when any virus harms the file system, or when the disk drive has bad sectors. The unallocated drive is not visible in File Explorer, but its status can be verified from Disk Management. Also, all the data stored on the unallocated drive can’t be accessed. You need to fix the unallocated disk drive first to access this data.
In this blog, we’ll share troubleshooting techniques to fix an unallocated disk drive so that it can be reused. And, also share methods to recover data from the unallocated drive.
Methods to Fix Unallocated Disk Drive and Recover Data
A. Enable the unallocated device using Device Manager
- Press the Windows key, then type ‘computer management’. Press Enter to open the utility.
- Go to System Tools > Device Manager.
- On the “Device Manager” pane, expand the “Disk drives” node.
- Right-click the USB flash drive with the down-facing arrow and select “Enable device”.
B. Convert the unallocated drive to RAW drive using Disk Management
- On the Computer Management utility, go to Storage > Disk Management.
- Right-click the unallocated USB flash drive and select “New Simple Volume.”
- On “New Simple Volume Wizard”, click Next. Click Next again to specify volume size.
- Click Next to assign the highlighted drive letter.
- Select “Do not format this volume” then click Next.
- Click Finish. The unallocated drive will now convert to RAW drive and it will be visible in File Explorer without any storage size.
C. Recover data by using data recovery software
- Download & install the *trial version of Stellar Data Recovery Standard on your PC. Double-click the software’s icon from the Desktop or Start menu to open the software.
- From the “Select What to Recover” screen, let “All Data” be selected, then click Next.
- From the “Recover From” screen, select the RAW disk drive. Turn on “Deep Scan” for 100% scan result, then click Scan. Let the software complete the scanning process. Click OK when prompted.
- Select a tab from the left pane then navigate to the folders that contained your lost files. Preview any files to check their integrity. Select the required files and click Recover.
- On the message box, click Browse to select a distinct volume/drive then click Save. Let the software recover the files to a specified destination. Click OK when prompted. Once the recovery is over, navigate to the save destination to check the recovered files.
D. Format the RAW disk drive to create a new file system
- Go to “File Explorer” and right-click the RAW disk drive.
- Click Format from the context menu.
- On the Format dialog box, let the default settings be selected and click Start. The unallocated drive is now formatted with the NTFS file system by using the “Quick Format” algorithm.
E. Restore the recovered files to the formatted USB disk drive
After formatting the RAW disk drive, you can access it normally. But the formatted drive will now be empty. You need to restore the files to the newly formatted drive. Steps are as follows:
- Navigate to the location wherein the files are recovered.
- Copy the required files.
- Paste the copied files to the newly formatted disk drive.
That’s it. You’ve recovered your lost data from the unallocated disk drive.
Conclusion
We hope the blog helped you recover your inaccessible data from an unallocated disk drive. First off, enable the unallocated disk drive by using Disk Manager. Then, convert the unallocated drive to the RAW drive by using Disk Management. Once your drive is visible in File Explorer, you can use a data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery Standard for Windows to recover your lost data from the RAW drive. Next, format the RAW disk drive to create a new file system. Finally, restore the recovered files to the formatted disk drive.
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NO About The Author
Santosh is a technical writer with 10-year experience in writing. He writes troubleshooting blogs, articles, and other web content on a variety of topics, including data recovery, data security, and data backup. His hobbies include solving puzzles, gardening & painting.
7 comments
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Hi, im also struggling to recover data from my sd card which got unaccessible, raw and unallocated suddenly on its own..any suggestion i found for windows didnt do the trick..i have to try linux, i have heard that linux can read raw partitions directly
Hi Kaido,
I’m sorry to hear that you’re facing difficulties with your SD card and the data recovery attempts on Windows haven’t been successful so far. When dealing with a suddenly inaccessible, raw, or unallocated SD card, it’s essential to handle the situation with caution to avoid further data loss. One possible step you can try is using specialized Stellar data recovery software. These programs can often recover data from corrupted or damaged storage devices. Additionally, you may want to try using the SD card on a different device or computer to see if the issue persists, as it could be a problem with the card reader or driver.Remember to create a backup of your data whenever possible to prevent such situations in the future.
i could not recover my data….
Hi Suresh,
It would be great if you could tell us what issue you faced exactly? Why can’t you recover your data?
This blog helped me to recover inaccessible data from an unallocated disk drive. Thanks for sharing such an awesome article.
Very useful article. Thanks for sharing .
Thanks for the information. I’d like to know what happens if I don’t assign a drive letter to unallocated partitions. Will I still get my data back or is that step a must? My disk is an external one and I prefer not to create new partitions on it.