1. Convert Ntfs Drive To Exfat
2. Convert Exfat To Ntfs Without Losing Data
3. How To Convert Exfat To Ntfs Without Losing Data
4. Ntfs To Exfat Converter

Watch this video to learn about FAT32, NTFS, and exFAT file systems. How to convert a USB drive, a memory card or an external hard disk from one file system. How To Convert Exfat To Ntfs External Hard Drive Without Losing Data. Now execute Convert H: /FS: NTFS and press Enter. The command prompt will start the conversion process and after a few minutes, CMD will say that conversion was successful.

Position: How Tos - Disk Utilities - Solved - Convert Is Not Available for Raw Drives

Summary

DiskGenius - Safely and completely recover lost data from RAW, corrupted or formatted partitions.

Table of contents:

RAW drive cannot be recognized by Windows operating system, as it is regarded as incorrect file system format. Thus, you cannot access RAW drive before it gets repaired. It is necessary to convert RAW to NTFS file system without losing data so as to repair the disk and save data. However, in many cases, converting RAW to NTFS does not go well enough. For example, you are likely to receive errors like 'convert is not available for RAW drives', or you have to format the RAW drive in order to get it repaired. What is the best solution? You can continue reading this tutorial to fix RAW drive without losing any data.

Overview on 'Convert is not available for RAW Drives' issue

'Hi everyone! I was trying to repaired a 500GB hard drive which shows RAW in Disk Management. It says I need to format it before I can use it every time I try to open it. I googled solutions with no luck. I've tried chkdsk /f which is said to repair corrupted drive. However, it did not work on my hard drive, for chkdsk is not available for RAW drive! This hard drive is used as an external hard drive to keep my backups of pictures, files, etc. I really cannot afford to lose those files. So, could anyone help me to repair the drive, save my data and convert RAW to NTFS?'

A partition becomes inaccessible and the file system becomes RAW in Disk Management. Also, this partition might be shown as Unformatted. If you google the issue, you may find many guides that suggest chkdsk. Unfortunately, such kind of guide can neither solve the problem nor get files recovered. 'The type of the file system is RAW, chkdsk is not available for RAW drives' is one of the most common errors you may get when you try to run chkdsk on RAW drives. Many users attempt to retrieve data from RAW drive by way of chkdsk command, however, this command only works on very few situations. Many times, such operation is likely to cause further damage to the RAW drive. Therefore, if the RAW partition contains important files, you should try RAW drive recovery first before trying any other repairing approaches.

RAW file system

What is RAW file system?

RAW file system refers to a file system format that cannot be recognized by operating system. Actually, RAW drive is the result of a damaged or corrupted file system. Since there is not correct file system on the drive, it can never be accessed by system. As to operating system, it needs to format RAW drive to proper file system before it can access it. Thus, you will receive error message when you try to open RAW partition.

RAW partition is a common data loss issue, and you can easily retrieve files with an effective recovery program. When files are recovered, you can try formatting it in system. Note: data recovery should be performed before formatting if the drive contains significant data.

Common scenarios of RAW drive

• Partition cannot be accessed in File Explorer and its file system shown as RAW in Disk Management.
• Chkdsk does not work and receive errors 'convert is not available for RAW drive' or 'The type of the file system is RAW, chkdsk is not available for RAW drives'
• The volume does not contain a recognized file system. Please make sure that all required file system drivers are loaded and that the volume is not corrupted.
• Disk in drive X: is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?
• Drive X: not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.
• The parameter is incorrect.
• You need to format the disk before you can use it.

Causes of RAW drive

• Storage device is removed from computer without clicking 'Safely Remove Hardware and Eject Media'.
• Sudden power failure when system is reading or writing data to the drive.
• Partition MFT gets damaged or corrupted.
• There are bad sectors on the storage devices.
• The file system used by the partition is not supported by current operating system, for example, an ext4 partition cannot be accessed by Windows system.

Solution 1: RAW drive recovery

Since the RAW drive cannot be converted to normal file system via command lines, the only method to retrieve data is to perform RAW drive recovery. RAW drive recovery or RAW partition recovery is the process of retrieving files and folders from inaccessible partitions or volumes without modifying or damaging original data. The recovery process is read-only, thus, you can recuse your data safely and completely.

It is recommended to use DiskGenius to do RAW drive recovery. In many cases, DiskGenius is able to display files and folders of RAW or unformatted partition without any scanning operations, making it easy and quick to get back lost files. DiskGenius is effective data recovery software to deal with lost or inaccessible partition from hard drive, external hard drive, USB flash drive, SD card, SSD, virtual disk, RAID, etc. It is fully support NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, Ext2, Ext3 and Ext4 file system.

Step 1 Install and launch DiskGenius, and view files.

Connect the hard drive or USB disk that contains RAW partition to your computer, and launch DiskGenius. Then you can view the disk in DiskGenius and it is usually displayed as Unformatted, Damaged, RAW, etc.

Select the inaccessible partition and click Files tab from the central area as below. In some cases, if the RAW drive is not damaged too much, DiskGenius can display files in that drive directly without doing any scanning. If this step does not work, you should move on to next step.

Step 2 Load RAW drive intelligently.

If the RAW drive was in NTFS format before it gets damaged and the first step does not list files in the partition, you can try this step. Select the RAW drive and click Tools menu to choose Load Current Partition Intelligently, as follows:

This function works well on inaccessible partitions, for example, NTFS partition turns to RAW, cannot be opened in File Explorer, and reports error messages like 'Drive is not accessible. The file or directory is corrupted and unreadable.' 'Disk is not formatted' 'Parameter is incorrect', etc.

If this function can load your files, you can preview data and then save needed files to a different location to get them recovered. If this step still cannot find out your data, you'll have to search for lost files from the inaccessible drive. Then move to next step.

Step 3 Search for lost data from RAW drive.

Right-click the RAW partition and select Recover Lost Files from context menu. Also, you can launch this function by select the RAW drive and click 'File Recovery' button from toolbar.

Click Start button from the pop-up window and DiskGenius starts to search for lost data from the unformatted drive.

If the partition is badly damaged, you should select 'Search For Known File Types' option so that the software can find out as many files as possible. This option is deep scanning option which searches for data via identifying file type without analyzing partition directory or file system area. Thus, it guarantees to maximize recovery result.

Preview files and check if your files are correct. Double-click a file and you can view file content in its original size, as below. DiskGenius supports such file preview method for many file types, such as photos, video, audio, MS Office documents, PDF files, Text files, etc. In this way, you can decide whether lost files are damaged prior to actual recovery.

Save and recover data. Select files and folders you want to recover, right-click on selected file and choose Copy to, and then you can set a destination to save recovered data. Once your files are recovered properly, you can try formatting the RAW drive to normal file system.

Solution 2: DiskPart converts RAW to NTFS

Sometimes Disk Management cannot format RAW drive and reports error like 'The format did not complete successfully'. Under such circumstance, you can try DiskPart to convert RAW to NTFS. One thing you should note is that the converting process erases all data on RAW drive, and you need to retrieve data on the RAW partition before trying following steps.

Step 1 Launch Command Prompt.

Type cmd in search box and you can see Command Prompt in searching result. Right click Command Prompt and choose Run as administrator.

Convert Ntfs Drive To Exfat

Step 2 In Command prompt, type diskpart command and press Enter key.

Step 3 Type following commands one by one in Command Prompt and press Enter key after each command.

list disk
select disk # (# is the disk number of the RAW drive)
clean
create primary
format fs=ntfs quick (this command carries out a quick format on the disk and formats it to NTFS. If you want to convert RAW to FAT32, then replace ntfs with FAT32.)

Solution 3: How to format RAW drive to NTFS/exFAT/FAT32/EXT4?

If you want to turn RAW files system to normal file system, you can follow this method to format it. Though Windows system is able to format partition, but it is not able to format drive to Linux file system. DiskGenius provides an easier way to format RAW drive to NTFS or other file system formats such as FAT32, exFAT, EXT2, EXT3 and EXT4.

Note: Formatting removes data stored on the partition, and you should make sure files on the partition have been recovered or backed up. If not, please follow steps in Solution 1 to recover data first.

Step 1 Launch DiskGenius and locate the corrupted partition in the software. Right-click the drive you want to format and choose Format Current Partition, as follows.

Step 2 Select file system type and click Format button.

Click the dropdown list of File System and you can select the file system you need. In the example below, there are 6 types of file system available, NTFS, FAT32, exFAT, EXT4, EXT3 and EXT2. If you just use the disk on Windows computer, then NTFS is the better choice.

Click Yes to continue when DiskGenius asks whether to format the disk. Then the RAW drive will be formatted to specified file system.

Conclusion

In short, we've discussed a couple of solutions to fix 'convert is not available for RAW drives' in Windows 10/8/7/XP. In rare circumstances, you can try some operations to repair the damaged drive. Whereas, if the RAW drive contains crucial data, it is recommended to do RAW drive recovery ahead of converting or formatting RAW to NTFS.

DiskGenius is complete partition manager and efficient data recovery software at the meantime, and it includes all needed functions to help you deal with RAW drive without data issue. If you encounter similar issue on hard drive or USB disk, you can easily fix it following this guide. For further help, please refer to more guides on support center or contact our support team.

DiskGenius - Advanced file & partition recovery tool helps to deal with all types of data loss issues.

Summary :

Want to format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows PC? Do you know how to do this work easily? This MiniTool article will show you specific methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, which are easy and safe to complete.

As we know, external hard drives are widely used to backup data or interchange files among different computers. Well, is there an external hard drive that could be shared between Mac and Windows PC? Of course, there is. Actually, most external hard disks could be compatible with Mac and PC as long as you format them correctly.

Why Need to Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC

To put it simply, if you want to share external hard drive between Mac and PC, you need to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Currently, hard drives for Windows PC are always formatted with NTFS, while hard disks for Mac are formatted with HFS+. However, when we connect a NTFS formatted disk to Mac, Mac OS X doesn't allow us to write files to the drive neither edit files, though it can read a NTFS drive. Similarly, Windows OS will ask us to format the HFS+ formatted drive when we connecting such a disk, let along edit files saved on HFS+ formatted hard disks unless we resort to third party programs.

But luckily, there are file systems well supported by both Mac and Windows PC, and they are FAT32 (it might be called MS-DOS on Mac) and exFAT. As long as we format the external hard drive to one of these 2 file systems, it can be shared between Mac and Windows.

Further Reading

Both FAT32 and exFAT have advantages and disadvantages.

FAT32: FAT32 works with all versions of Windows, Mac OS, Linux, game consoles, etc.

However, single files on a FAT32 drive can't be larger than 4GB. If your external drive saves files larger than 4GB or you plan to save larger files to this drive, converting to FAT32 is not recommended.

In addition, a FAT32 partition must be not more than 32GB if you create it in Windows Disk Management. Of course, there is free partition manager that can help create a FAT32 volume up to 2TB, which also functions correctly.

exFAT: exFAT has very large file size and partition size limits, which means it's a good idea to format your external hard drive to exFAT.

Nevertheless, a lot of users complained that exFAT is slow, and they highly suggest using FAT32 if you can avoid file size constraints.

Three Options for Accessing NTFS Drives on Mac

Paid Third-Party Drivers

Some paid third-party NTFS drivers for Mac can be used to access NTFS drives on Mac. They work well and they have better performance than the free solutions which will be mentioned in the following part. Paragon NTFS for Mac is such a driver.

Besides, you can also use the paid third-party file system converters to convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT which are compatible with both Mac and PC. MiniTool Partition Wizard is one representative.

Free Third-Party Drivers

FUSE for macOS is a free and open-source NTFS driver that can enable write support. But, this solution is slower relatively. And the automatically mounting NTFS partitions in read-write mode can be a security risk for your Mac computer.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Write Support

The Mac OS has an experimental support for writing to NTFS drives. Usually, it is disabled by default and needs some messing around in the Mac terminal to enable it.

It doesn’t work properly all the time and could lead to potential issues with your NTFS file system. For example, it had corrupted data before. Thus, we don’t suggest using this tool and we believe it is disabled by this reason.

Here, we recommend using the paid third-party tools since they are easy-to-use and can do good work for you.

Then, we will introduce these three options for you in the following content.

The Best Paid Third-Party Driver: Paragon NTFS for Mac

Paragon NTFS for Mac can write, edit, delete, copy, or move files on NTFS volumes from your Mac computer. It offers a 10-day free trial. If you want to use it all the time, you need to pay for it.

With it, you don’t have to fiddle with terminal commands to mount partitions manually. Additionally, it can mount partitions automatically and safely. More importantly, it can code with the potential corruption. If you purchase a Seagate drive, you can even get a free download of Paragon NTFS for Mac.

All in all, it does its works well and gives you good user’s experience.

The Best Free Third-Party Drivers: FUSE for macOS

FUSE for macOS is a free solution to access NTFS on Mac. But it is less secure.

If you want to make automatically mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode on Mac, you need to temporarily disable the System Integrity Protection and replace one of Apple’s built-in tools with a binary that is more vulnerable to attack. Thus, your Mac is in danger when using this driver.

However, you can use it to manually mount NTFS partitions in read-write mode if you never mind using the Terminal. This will be safer, but you need to do more work. You can go to google the steps and see how complex they are.

Apple’s Experimental NTFS-Writing Support: Don’t Do This, Seriously

Although we mentioned this method in our article, we still don’t recommend it because it is the least tested. It is just for educational purposes, and it is available on Mac OS 10.12 Sierra. Perhaps, it will be unstable forever.

How to Quickly Format External Hard Drive for Mac and PC without Losing Data

Another way to access NTFS drive on Mac is to convert the NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT. Then, the drive can be used on both Mac and PC.

There should be some important data on the drive. To keep it safe, you can choose this best NTFS/HFS+ to FAT/exFAT converter: MiniTool Partition Wizard.

How to Convert NTFS to FAT32 or exFAT Without Data Loss

To format hard drive for Mac and Windows without data loss, we suggest using MiniTool Partition Wizard and its 'Convert NTFS to FATS32' function. If you are a personal user, you can try its Professional Edition.

Step 1: Run MiniTool Partition Wizard

Download this software to your computer. Then, you can open the software and input the license key to the pop-out window to get its Professional Edition.

Step 2: Convert NTFS to FAT32 with This Software

After running the program successfully, we can see its main interface as follows:

Here, please select the NTFS partition of external hard drive and choose 'Convert NTFS to FAT' feature from the left action pane. If there is more than one NTFS partition, convert all of them one by one.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make the change executed.

When MiniTool Partition Wizard shows it applies the change successfully, the original NTFS will finally become a FAT32 partition.

By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and PC without losing any data. Then, you can share external hard drive between Mac and PC

You Can Convert NTFS to exFAT in 3 Steps

Convert Exfat To Ntfs Without Losing Data

However, if you want to convert NTFS to exFAT to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC, 3 steps are required.

Step 1: Transfer Data out from External Hard Drive

You can choose to copy and paste those files to other external devices or internal hard disk of Windows, but it will cost much time. Instead, you can use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition to create a copy for your external drive, which is faster.

If there is only one NTFS partition on external hard drive, refer to the tutorial Copy Partition to get instructions. However, if there is more than one NTFS partition, view Copy Disk to get specific operations.

Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard

How To Convert Exfat To Ntfs Without Losing Data

The Free Edition of this software also enables you to do this job.

Firstly, you need to delete the partition by using this software. Just open the software to enter its main interface. Then, choose the target partition and click 'Delete Partition' from the left action pane. After that, you should click 'Apply' to keep this change.

Secondly, the target partition will become unallocated. Here, you need to choose that partition and click on 'Create Partition' from the left action pane.

Thirdly, you will see a pop-out window. Here, you can choose 'exFAT' from the 'File System' setting option. At the same time, you can also set some other parameters for this partition, including 'Partition Label', 'Drive Letter', 'Size And Location'. After that, please click on 'OK'.

Fourthly, you will go back to the main interface. Then, please click on 'Apply' to save these changes.

Finally, an exFAT partition will be created on your external hard disk so that it could be shared between Mac and Windows PC

Step 3: Transfer Data back to External Drive

If you want to share files that you have backed up between Mac and PC, now please transfer these files back to external hard drive.

How to Convert HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without Losing Data

Besides, you can format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows by converting HFS+ to FAT32 or exFAT without losing any data.

Step 1: Backup Data in HFS+ Partition on Mac

Just transfer all useful files out from the external hard drive to other devices on Mac. Of course, if you have a backup already, ignore this step.

Ntfs To Exfat Converter

Step 2: Create a FAT32 or exFAT Partition on Windows PC

Some people may ask why create such partitions on Windows rather than Mac. That is because there are cases reporting FAT32 (MS-DOS) or exFAT partitions created on Mac did not work well on Windows.

Please skip to Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive to FAT32 to get steps to create a FAT32 partitions or go back to Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard to get operations to create an exFAT partition.

How to Make an Empty External Drive Compatible with Mac and PC

If there is no file saved on your external hard drive, how to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC?

It's very easy to share it between Mac and PC and you also need a Windows computer, a Mac machine, and the free partition manager MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition.

There are 3 solutions for this case, so please choose the one you like most to format external hard drive Windows 10/8/7.

Solution 1: Format External Hard Drive Windows 10/8/7 to FAT32

Since users are unable to create a FAT32 partition larger than 32GB in Windows Disk Management, they need to use MiniTool Partition Wizard Free.

Please download and install this program on your Windows computer to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC.

Firstly, open the software to enter its main interface as follows. Here, please select the NTFS partition or HFS+ partition of external hard drive, and click 'Delete Partition' feature from the left action pane. If there are multiple partitions on the external disk, please select the disk and click 'Delete All Partitions' feature instead. After that, an unallocated space will be released.

Secondly, you can create one or more FAT32 partitions in unallocated space. Select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left side.

Then, you should choose 'FAT32' from the 'File System' option in the pop-out window. Meanwhile, you can set properties for this new partition and click 'OK' to go back to the main window of Partition Wizard.

At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Solution 2: Format External Hard Drive Windows 7/8/10 to exFAT

Firstly, please delete the NTFS or HFS+ partition in either MiniTool Partition Wizard or Windows Disk Management to release unallocated space. Then, you can create an exFAT partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition by following steps introduced in the section Step 2: Create exFAT Partition with MiniTool Partition Wizard.

Once a FAT32 or exFAT partition is created on your external hard drive, you can share it on both Mac and Windows PC.

Solution 3: Create One HFS+ Partition for Mac and One NTFS Partition for Windows

Alternatively, you can create 2 partitions on the external hard drive: one is for Mac, and the other is for Windows. As to size for each partition, it depends on your own demands. By this way, you can easily format an external hard drive for Mac and Windows.

Step 1: Create a NTFS Partition and a FAT32 Partition

Please run MiniTool Partition Wizard Free Edition, then delete all the original NTFS or HFS+ partition(s), and create a new NTFS partition as well as a FAT32 partition, and the latter will be formatted to HFS+ in Mac machine.

Then, select the external hard drive and choose 'Delete All Partitions' to create an unallocated space.

Here, select the unallocated space and choose 'Create Partition' feature from the left action pane.

Now, please specify partition label (Windows is recommended), partition type (primary or logical), drive letter, file system (NTFS), cluster size, and partition size (you can change the length of the handle to adjust partition size). Then, click 'OK' to continue.

Now, you can see a NTFS partition is created. Please use the same way to create a FAT32 partition labeled with Mac. At last, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

Step 2: Format the FAT32 Partition to HFS+ Partition on Mac

Please go to Utilities → Disk Utility.

Then, select the external hard drive and click 'Partition' tab on the top.

Now, find the FAT32 partition and format it to OS X Extended (Journaled), which is the desired HFS+. Finally, click 'Apply' button to make all changes performed.

After NTFS partition and HFS+ partition are created on your external hard drive, it can be shared between Mac and Windows PC.

Bottom Line

Are you planning to format an external hard drive for Mac and PC? If yes, now try one of our methods to make external hard drive compatible with Mac and PC.

Should you have any problem, just feel free to leave us a message in comment part below or send an email to [email protected].

Format Hard Drive for Mac and PC FAQ