Recover Hard Drives with LOCATION IS NOT AVAILABLE Error

When attempting to access a hard drive (an internal or external drive) in Windows, you may receive a warning: Location is not available. 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. In this case, access to the files stored on this particular storage device will be denied. So what does this error message mean and how do we recover hard drives with location is not available error?

The error message suggests that the filesystem is not recognized by the operating system.  Filesystem is used to control how data is stored and retrieved. Without a file system, information placed in a storage medium would be one block of raw data with no way to tell where one piece of information stops and the next begins. By separating the data into pieces and giving each piece a name, the information is easily isolated and identified. Without a proper filesystem, the storage device becomes RAW and inaccessible. Learn how to recover data from RAW hard drives.

There are several reasons for this error to occur:

1. Virus Infection. Viruses that corrupt partition table can compromise the integrity of the filesystem. Many destructive viruses damage the Master Boot Record and destroy partition information.

2. Failed Filesystem Conversion. Accidents like sudden power outage when trying to convert between filesystems such as NTFS and FAT can cause unexpected errors to the filesystem, rendering it damaged and unrecognizable.

3. Hardware failure. Hard disk drive bad sectors or motherboard malfunctions will result in partition table damage as well. Sudden disconnection of hard drives from host computers while still engaging in read/write activity or repeated disconnection caused by bad quality USB cable and unstable voltages may also damage filesystem.

How to Fix Location Is Not Available Error

We can try to fix this problem by repairing the Master Boot Record, where the file system information is stored. Fixing the MBR and other boot problems in Windows requires installation disk or recovery disk to enter the recovery environment. Once you are in the recovery environment, you can access the Command Prompt to try to fix the MBR. Enter the following command and then press enter “bootrec.exe /FixMbr”. If it successfully repairs your MBR, you should be greeted with the message The operation completed successfully.

If the MBR repair yields no result, we should consider performing the data recovery. It is important to choose a professional data recovery software that is capable of restoring data from RAW hard drives. Here we would strongly recommend H Data Recovery Software. H Data Recovery Software is considered as the best hard drive data recovery software to restore data from RAW hard drives, external USB drives, SD cards and other storage drives caused by “location is not available” error in Windows operating systems. It’s a powerful yet handy tool for nearly everyone who meets unexpected data loss and needs an instant and easy data recovery.

Recover Data from Hard Drives with Location Is Not Available Error

Step 1.  Free download and install H Data Recovery Software. Launch the software and select the Partition Recovery module. Alternatively, you can also use the Universal Recovery module, which will deep-scan for all missing files.

Step 2. Select the hard drive or other storage devices that are experiencing the “location is not available error” and click Next to scan. When the scanning is done, you can browse the result and filter the content by file names or file extensions.

Step 3. To recover files, select from the list and proceed to choose a safe directory to save them to your computer.