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Windows Server Disk Format - ReFS format fails, NTFS format succeeds

cl flag

I have a Seagate SATA HDD in a USB enclosure, connected to a Windows Server 2019 server. The disk is formatted as ReFS. Nightly backups are written to this disk on schedule. The physical server recently hard reset during one of these backups, and since then the disk shows as RAW in computer management. Attempts to reformat the disk as ReFS fail with "Windows was unable to complete the format". NTFS reformat works fine.

Strangely, if I pass the physical disk through to a Hyper-V VM, it formats successfully as ReFS. But when detached from the VM and placed back online on the physical host, it shows as RAW again.

  • USB HDD > Physical Server > Format Disk > ReFS > Fails
  • USB HDD > Physical Server > Format Disk > NTFS > Succeeds
  • USB HDD > Physical Server > Physical Disk Passthrough to VM > Format Disk > ReFS > Succeeds (but still shows RAW when reattached to hyper-v host)

I have run the 'Clean' command in DiskPart, and reinitialized the disk in Server Manager. No change to the above behavior.

Any idea what is going on?

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