How to Format a RAW Micro SD Card [Quick Guide]

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Sherly 

Last updated on April 22, 2024

On this page, you can learn about why a Micro SD card becomes raw and the 2 ways to format a raw Micro SD card.

Are you looking for a quick way to format your RAW Micro SD card? RAW format is a common issue with Micro SD cards, HDDs, SSDs, USB flash drives, pen drives, or any other data storage devices. This article will provide you with two effective methods to resolve this problem. Read on to learn more.

Why Does Micro SD Card Become RAW?

A Micro SD card is typically used in SD card slots on smartphones, GPS devices, and certain types of cameras. When it becomes Raw, though, it won't work as it should. What usually causes the Raw format? Here are some common reasons that result in a Raw Micro SD card:

• Virus or malware attack
• Corrupted partition table
• Damaged file system structure
• Incorrect partition access settings
• Bad sectors in the critical areas of the Micro SD card

All the above reasons can lead to a Micro SD card becoming RAW. If your Micro SD card turns into RAW, you will get errors like “The disk is not formatted. Do you want to format it now?” or “The disk in drive is not formatted. Would you like to format it now?” when you try to access it.

In that case, you'll need to format your Micro SD card as a different kind of file system. How do you do it? Read on.

How to format RAW Micro SD card?

In this part, you'll learn two methods to format a raw micro SD card. We'll show you how to format a raw micro SD card using both built-in Windows tools and a professional third-party tool.

So let's start with the easier one.

Method 1: Format Raw Micro SD Card via Partition Master

Tool Partition Master Free is a professional formatting tool for Windows users that can help you format the original Micro SD card with just a few clicks. This tool breaks the barrier and allows you to easily format large RAW Micro SD cards to FAT32/NTFS or any other file system. Download the tool now and follow the steps below to format the raw Micro SD card in Windows 11/10/8.1/7, Windows XP, and Windows Vista.

Step 1: Launch AOMEI Partition Assistant.

Right click on the RAW partition or RAW external hard drive/USB/SD card that needs to be formatted, and select "Format".

Step 2: Format the RAW partition and reset the file system.

Assign a label to the new partition, choose the file system (NTFS/FAT32/EXT2/EXT3/EXT4/exFAT) and cluster size, then click “OK”.

(3) Click Yes in the warning dialog box to continue.

Click “Yes” to allow the program to format the target RAW partition to the file system format of your choice.

<Fourth Step> Perform the Action

Hit the “Execute 1 Task(s)” button on the bottom-right to review all the changes and then click “Apply” to start formatting the RAW partition/USB/SD/external hard drive.

And do you know what else Partition Master can do for us? Let's dig into the tool.

Other features of Partition Master include:

• Wipe Hard Drive Before Selling
• Recover RAW SD to NTFS/FAT32 in Windows
• Format/Reformat a Hard Drive or External Hard Drive
• Merge/Split/Extend/Shrink/Move Partitions
• Format RAW SD Card, USB Drive, or Other External Drives
• Format SD Cards for Switch, Camera, and Android Phones

To manage the SD card better, you can download Partition Master to help you.

Method 2: Format RAW micro SD Card via CMD

If you can't format the SD card in Disk Management or File Explorer, you can turn to use "disk management software" with "diskpart commands". Diskpart can help format an original Micro SD card, but you must be careful when typing the commands, or data loss will occur. Here are the steps to format an original Micro SD card:

Step 1. Open the Command Prompt by pressing the Windows key and R at the same time.

Step 2: Type in "diskpart" to open a new window.

Step 3: Type one of the commands below and press "Enter."

• list disk • Select disk 2 (where 2 represents the SD card's number) • list volume • Select volume 10 (where 10 represents the number of the RAW partition) • format fs=ntfs quick (replace NTFS with the correct file system) • exit

If you're not comfortable with computers or these commands, you can format your raw Micro SD card this way. Partition Master is a better option for all users, so you'll like it whether you're a beginner or not. After formatting your Micro SD card, you can use the Data Recovery Wizard to recover your data and avoid losing any.

By the way, you might run into a few other issues when using the original SD card. You might also like:

In summary

This article will explain why your Micro SD card becomes raw and offer you 2 ways to format the raw Micro SD card to solve the problem. This is a common issue for Micro SD card users, so don't worry. You can use a partition manager tool to help you with hard drive partitioning issues. If you are an advanced user, you can also use Diskpart, but be careful when using CMD to avoid data loss.

If you have any other questions about formatting a raw micro SD card, continue reading below.

"Frequently Asked Questions about Formatting Raw Micro SD Card"

Now that you know how to format your raw Micro SD card, this section lists three common questions about this issue to help you out.

**1. How can I format my RAW SD card without losing data?**

Before formatting the SD card, you should recover the data first. You can download the tool Data Recovery Wizard to retrieve the data. Then, you can use Partition Master or Diskpart to format the RAW SD card.

2. What is an SD card's "raw" state? When an SD card shows as "raw," it means its file system is not recognizable by the operating system or it has not been formatted with a readable file system. On Windows, you'll typically see a dialog prompting you to format the SD card, which would erase all data. An SD card might become raw due to file system corruption, virus infection, improper ejection, or other hardware issues. To resolve this, you might need to use a data recovery tool to attempt data retrieval and then reformat the SD card. Remember to back up important files before formatting since this process will result in data loss.

Raw format means that you can't access it like you normally would. There are a few reasons why this might be so:

• Bad sectors
• File system errors
• Virus infections

There could be other reasons, but you can format your original SD card to try and get rid of this error.

3. How do I format my original SD card to FAT32?

You can format your original SD card to FAT32, and then follow these steps:

Step 1: Open the Command Prompt and type diskpart.

Step 2. Enter the following command:

1. list disk
2. select disk 1 （Replace 1 with the number of your SD card.）
3. list volume
4. select volume 2 (Replace 2 with the correct number.)
5. format fs=fat32 quick

This will allow you to convert raw to FAT32.