How to Fix ReFS volume repair was not successful in Windows 11

ReFS stands for Resilient File System, and it's the latest file system developed and released by Microsoft for Windows Server and Windows Stand alone. However, if you are seeing a message ReFS volume repair failed in Windows 11 or 10, then you can fix it by following the steps provided in this article.

If ReFS Volumes repair fails, what to do?

The integrity of data is ensured, and for ReFS security, a digital fingerprint or checksum is kept along with the data and related information (metadata). However, by default, the integrity stream is disabled by the disk volume label.

Records volume appear as RAW in ReFS.

One of the most common indications that a repair to a ReFS volume has failed is that the ReFS partition shows up as RAW in the Windows Disk Management software. To recover the data in such a case onto an external device, we can follow the following steps:

Press the USB port of the computer with the external drive and press Windows + R to bring the Run dialog box.

Open up Windows Terminal by typing cmd and then pressing Enter.

Via Command Prompt,

/status refcp D:Data F:Backup

Here, the letter of the external drive is represented by F: Backup, and Backup is the folder where recovered data from D:Data-which is the source path-would be saved. Optionally used is the /status switch to view the status of the transfer.

Once the data backup is complete, the volume can be reformatted as ReFS and put to any other use.

Drive not appearing or cannot mount ReFS volumes

Mounting a drive is a method by which an operating system of a computer can access storage devices whether internally or externally mounted to the computer. Operating systems assign drive letters dynamically once mounted, such as D:, E:, F:, among others. The ReFS Volume could, on the other hand, be mounted and create potential problems in case it is still broken even after repairing, and Windows does not recognize that. Below are methods that could be applied to fix the problem.

Checking the volume for errors and making necessary repairs, the chkdsk utility can be opened from the Windows Terminal using the following command:

do a chkdsk on all directories - location D

Any structural issues are corrected, and D: is the volume containing ReFS data. The /r command locates those corrupted portions of a volume and restores its data to a location on the disk that's undamaged or intact.

We might then also want to attempt a force-mount of the drive using Windows Terminal cmdlets. It would only require typing:

install D: /f

D is the ReFS disk and /f is a switch to ensure the OS mounts the drive forcefully, no matter how partially corrupt the volume is. We can re-format the drive to ReFS and recover the data once it has been mounted properly.

Repair of ReFS volume is not supported in Windows 11.

If unable to repair ReFS volume you can remedy the issue by following the following steps:

Run commands with Windows PowerShell

Allow or Enable Streams for File Integrity

Run ReFSutil

1. run commands using Windows PowerShell

The Windows PowerShell cmdlets can also be used to repair a ReFS disk volume without having a backup available. To repair a corrupted volume:

Just type in "Windows PowerShell" into your desktop search, and left-click the first entry to open Windows PowerShell.

Within the PowerShell command prompt, type,

Driver E - OfflineScanAndFix - Repair-Volume

The above cmdlet initiates OfflineScanAndFix on the offline E: disk volume in an attempt to repair any faults that might already be present in it. The volume automatically comes online once the process is complete. This can also repair multiple volumes with the same syntax by taking note of the drive letters as shown below:

A repair volume, drive letter GHI, and a scan • SpotFix

To find and fix ReFS volumes, we have the OfflineScanAndFix option and -Scan and -SpotFix options. In this, we are checking the volumes G:, H:, and I: for mistakes and adding those to a system file if any are found out. Then, the -SpotFix option fixes the corrupt entries found in the system files that were previously checked.

Repair the REFS_FILE_SYSTEM Windows Blue Screen of Death by reading this

(2) Enable or Activate File Integrity Streams

While there is integrity scrubber technique that ReFS uses to detect and fix data corruption, there are instances when it falls short of expectations.

ReFS volume Repair can succeed in case of any issues that the file system is dealing with, or data corruption. We can enable File Integrity Stream in these scenarios so that we increase our chances of repairing the volume and also minimize the data loss. For this, you can use Windows PowerShell:

Open Windows PowerShell by searching for "Windows PowerShell" using the search on your desktop.

After opening PowerShell, if prompted, type

Hit C:> Set-FileIntegrity H: -Enable $True

where H: is the volume on the disk that has File Integrity enabled.

Read: Refresh of update makes ReFS volume unavailable

3. Use ReFSutil

You can use the ReFSutil Windows command-line utility to scan ReFS volumes for damage, locate undamaged files, and then copy them onto other drives using its salvaging feature as a part of two different steps: Scan and Copy. You can do these steps manually one by one using the following commands:

salvage-refsutils QA Folder D: C:Temp C:Recovery

The relevant volume (D:) can be scanned in quick mode (QA) by making the 'C:Temp' the current working directory and 'C:Recovery' the destination directory. The temporary extraction files and logs created by the software while processing are kept in the directory, which is known as the working directory. Target Directory: It is the path for the place where the destination of recovered files is to be kept.

The Volume Shadow Copy service is the service responsible for ensuring that the ReFS utility and the salvage are working correctly.

And with this, we take our leave, with the hope you will be able to resolve this; we are pretty sure of that.