In fact, not formatted error not only happens on external hard drive, but also appears on almost all storage devices such as hard disk drive, USB flash drive, pen drive, floppy disk, memory card, memory stick and so on. When not formatted error happens on those devices, a similar error message saying "disk in drive is not formatted, do you want to format it now" will pop up. Facing such situation, what should you do? Are you going to format the hard drive as you are told?
Solutions to External Hard Drive Not Formatted
If your external hard drive keeps asking you to format it after you have tried the above solution, you can download Data Recovery which is an excellent program that brings file recovery to Windows to have a try. This software works great on Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10, both 32 bit and 64 bit, and is able to recover the mainstream file types on audio, video, image, email, etc.. With this tool, you can easily get your inaccessible files out from unformatted hard drive (RAW drive).
recover files from external hdd without formatting
Common practices to prevent hard disk error
More information- Do not perform abrupt termination of system, always shutdown it using proper procedure
- Have recurrent backup of crucial files from hard drive on multiple storage devices
- Do not format the drive when it shows drive needs formatting error, as it reduces the chances of 100% recovery
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