Server 2012 - Unable to see hard disk Volumes is in RAW format

Question

Our server will not boot and through diskpart we can see the c:\ and d:\ volumes however they are showing as RAW instead of NTFS. Is there a way to get the drives back to NTFS?

Answer 1

1. Ensure that the latest drivers are installed.
2. Run Chkdsk <driveletter> /f
   • This is a destructive rewrite of indexes and attributes of files. So do not run this unless you have a good backup.
   • If possible, It will Fixes errors on the volume and make the drive NTFS again.
3. Once verified (through diskpart) that the drives are in ntfs format run bootrec /rebuildbcd
   1. Verify that it finds and indexes the os volume
4. Attempt to boot the server
5. If still does not boot, restore from backup.

You will need to find out why your hard drives ended up going to RAW format. Whether it was hardware failure, os corruption, virus, etc.

Pull Event logs
Location: Should be in C:\Windows\System32\config or C:\Windows\System32\winevt\Logs depending on OS

View Windows Prefetch
C:\Windows\Prefetch
This records what on the system is accessed. Mark McKinnon created a tool created for parsing this data.

Registry is stored in C:\Windows\System32\config once backed up you can view the following info

View Last logged on user
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\Software\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\Winlogon

View Last key edited by RegEdit
HKEY_CURRENT_USER\Software\Microsoft\Windows\CurrentVersion\Applets\Regedit

Note:

You can try and Run the following 3 commands from the 2012 recovery DVD under Repair your computer, however it can not fix the mbr or even see the bcd while the disks are in RAW format

1. bootrec /fixmbr
2. bootrec /fixboot
3. bootrec /rebuildbcd