My External Hard Drive is now classified as RAW - can you format it

[Melissa]

Dear Forum,

I have a Generic Flash External Disk Drive that I am having trouble formatting.

It has data that used to be on it before I changed the Storage Policies on the Control Set in the Registry Editor after reading on how to do it on the Microsoft Knowledge Base Formatting disks and drives: frequently asked questions

I have copied and pasted the data that was originally on the disk - I just want to know if there is a way of making the Generic External Disk Drive usable again.

I am unsure of the different names to change it to and just wish to utilise it again.

I tried to change the Format via this link How to Format FAT32: 7 Steps (with Pictures) - wikiHow - It came up that I had bad sectors.

Can someone please assist?

 

[Melissa]

This is what I did in Registry Editor - I had to create the the StorageDevicePolicies folder.

Open Registry Editor.
In Registry Editor, navigate to the following registry key:
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\System\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies
Note: This key might not exist. In that case simply create it as a new key under the parent key.
Create the following value (DWORD):
WriteProtect
and give it a value of 1.
Note: As always, before making changes to your registry you should always make sure you have a valid backup. In cases where you're supposed to delete or modify keys or values from the registry it is possible to first export that key or value(s) to a .REG file before performing the changes.
Close Registry Editor.
Done!
Try to write something to any USB Disk and you'll get the following error:

 

[Ztruker]

Is this a flash drive (thumb drive)?
How big is it supposed to be?

Did you try removing the WriteProtect from the registry?

 

[Melissa]

I will try that - will that change the RAW status of the flash drive (thumb drive)?
It is supposed to be 984MB.

I will try that and report back

 

[Melissa]

I am clutching at straws.

I am just wanting to re-use the disk. How does it become the state of RAW?

I am also looking at what other people do and it appears that there is no guarantee that anything works.
I have tried the windows prompt at the beginning when I attached the USB.

This is result of the CMD

No more trying to change registry - I did not change the ControlSet001 and ControlSet002

Looks like nothing to be done.

 

[Ztruker]

I wouldn't spend much time working on this. Flash drives are dirt cheap and if there is any question of it's quality I'd toss it and buy another.

 

[Melissa]

I was told to try to change it not to NTFS but to FAT - would that make any difference?

I had some backup data on it.

I will give up. no use wasting hours of time.

Could you assist me with the commands to format from CMD to FAT?

I am struggling

Thanks you

 

[Ztruker]

You already did that and got a sector error

Format e: /fs:fat32