Windows 10: Need help! Windows Defender Update on September 20 corrupted my external HDD - now reads RAW

This is not the first time this happens.


I turn on my computer and I find that my external HDD’s, which were fine and working properly the day before, are now asking to be FORMATTED. They show up as RAW in Disc Management.


- Always happens following a Windows update of some kind.

The latest occurence was on September 20, 2019. A Windows Defender Update was installed.


In previous occurences - yes, this has happened repeatedly - Microsoft directed me to update the drivers. For the last three times, this worked and immediately restored the drive to NTFS.


This time, no such luck! Microsoft tried the basics, tried to update the drivers in various ways, and then ran a Checkdisk on one of the HDD’s. Nothing helped.


Question:


Has this occured for other users? Do you have a solution?


What is the brand of your external HDD? Mine, as I realize now, are all WD - SATA drives, some green, some red, ranging anywhere from 2TB to 8TB.


I am seriously considering switching to MAC... but would prefer to keep my current PC.


Any help would be greatly appreciate.

I can provide technical specs.

:)

 

External HDD's 'converted' to RAW on PC

I have multiple external HDD's, both WD and Seagate, that are recognizable by my PC, but list in device manager as RAW and empty. I can access all the information on the drives on my laptop just fine. I've tried to reformat the drive and it wont allow me
to access the drive, reading "the format did not complete successfully." I've tried everything from wiping my SSD that windows was installed on and reinstalling fresh, to updating my BIOS, to uninstalling the drivers...

I cant find anything that will allow them to work on my PC.

 

Raw formatted my external

nope, it became raw because the program I used was trying to use it as a boot drive so it attempted to reformat but I stopped it instantly. I would rather not have to fix it from a boot, I need a good way to do it from windows. I dont wanna be sitting in a black screen for 6hrs+ while some random program may or may not fix my hdd.

 

Raw formatted my external


Your HD became RAW (Corrupted Master Boot Record) for one of the reasons below:

1. HD is going bad
2. Power Surge
3. You unplug the cable and did not use "Safely Remove" while the HD is performing disk I/O

Download test disk and follow the link below
UPDATED How To Fix: External Disk Drive Suddenly Became RAW