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You should know that initializing a disk won't damage data, causing data loss problem at all. It's safe to initialize a disk to a normal state when it shows as unknown not initialized. To initialize a hard disk in Windows Disk Management: Step 1. Connect the uninitialized external hard drive, HDD or other storage devices to your PC. Mac OSX 10.9.x, and 10.10.x include a built in utility known as Disk Utility that can be used to partition and format a hard drive. To partition and format the drive with Disk Utility, follow these steps: 1. Double left-click on the Mac HD, the internal Mac hard drive visible on the top-right corner of the desktop screen.
How to Setup WD My Passport Ultra 1TB on Mac? Switch on your Mac system and connect the WD My Password 1 TB drive to the system using a cable.; Make sure you have given permission for external devices to be recognized on your system. 'If yes', then the WD icon will be available in the menu bar. The next step of the setup procedure is to double-click on the.dmg file to begin the installation.
Updated by Tim to Data Recovery Tips on April 23th, 2020
I have WD external hard disk connected via USB and it does not get detected in Windows explorer. Checked disk management where it shows disk as 'Unknown' and 'Not initialized'. I don't want to lose any data, it contains all my family photos, please help.
Three disk unknown not initialized situations
1. Disk 1 unknown, not initialized, no size or no disk space. In this case, it is a harware issue.
2. Disk 1 unknown, not initialized, unallocated space
3. Disk unknown, not initialized, I/O device error. In this case, it is a harware issue.
Windows Disk Management shows an error: disk unknown not initialized on the hard disk, external hard drive, USB drive, flash drive, SD card, etc, the disk may show 'unallocated space' or no disk space in Disk Management, so you are not able to access data stored on this uninitialized disk, which makes you very upset and don't know how to solve this issue and recover lost data.
Why is disk unknown not initialized?
Generally speaking, there are several reasons cause disk unknown not initialized:
1. Virus attack: Sometimes external hard disk is unknown not uninitialized because of virus infection.
2. Bad sectors: If there are bad sectors on the storage device, Windows OS fails to read the partition table information from the first sector and load the partition table, Disk Management will show disk unknown not uninitialized.
3. MBR corruption: The MBR (Mast Boot Sector) code and partition table are written in the first sector of the disk. Once MBR is corrupted, disk will be not unknown not uninitialized and Windows OS fails to access the data stored on this disk.
4. Partition loss: when partition is lost or deleted, disk unknown not initialized issue may happen.
5. Hardware issue.
How to fix 'disk unknown not initialized, unallocated space'?
Firstly open Windows Disk Management and find the uninitialized disk. If this uninitialized disk shows disk capacity, it means your Windows OS has recognized this uninitialized disk, but the partition is lost/deleted or MBR is corrupted due to some reasons. In this case, you need to fix/rebuild MBR and recover the deleted/lost partition.
After knowing the above methods, it is time to fix disk unknown not initialized issue with the following solutions:
Solution 1: Initialize the hard disk
If the disk unknown not initialized issue appears in Disk Management, the first thing you may do is to initialize the target disk. However, initialization would erase all disk data, please make sure if there is important data stored on this uninitialized disk before initializing.
If there is importanta data stored on it, you need recover lost data from the uninitialized disk first and then initialize the target disk after data recovery is successfully done.
M3 Data Recovery is a free data recovery software which supports to recover lost data from the uninitialized disk, recover lost data from the formatted, RAW, inaccessible, corrupted, lost, deleted partition, etc.
Please follow below steps to recover lost data from the uninitialized disk:
Step 1: Download and install M3 Data Recovery software on your Windows computer.
Step 2: Connect the uninitialized disk to your Windows computer as external drive.
Step 3: Launch M3 Data Recovery software and choose Data Recovery module.
If the drive is BitLocker encrypted, please choose BitLocker Recovery module to recover lost data from BitLocker encrypted drive.
Step 4: Click 'Find More Partitions'.
Step 5: Select the uninitialized disk and click Next to scan for lost partitions.
Step 6: Select the lost partition and click Next to scan the lost data.
Step 7: After the scan completes, the lost files will be listed as below window, then select the files you want to recover and start recovery.
After data recovery from the uninitialized disk, please follow below steps to initialize this disk:
Step 1: Right click My Computer or This PC.
Step 2: Select Manage from the right-click menu -> Storage -> Disk Management.
Step 3: Right click this target disk and select 'Initialize Disk'.
Step 4: In the Initialize Disk window, check to make sure that the correct disk is selected and then select the partition style: MBR or GPT.
Legend of the red falcon. Step 5: Click Ok to initialize this disk.
After this disk is initialized, you can repartition it according to your needs. If you receive I/O device error when initializing, it means there is a hardware issue on the uninitialized disk.
Solution 2: Fix/Rebuild MBR
MBR corruption may cause disk unknown not initialized issue, in this case, fixing/rebuilding MBR is the quick way to solve disk unknown not initialized issue, there are some the 3rd-party tools (Such as Aomei Partition Assistant, MiniTool Partition Wizard) which have the function to fix/rebuild MBR.
Step 1: Download, install and launch Aomei Partition Assistant.
Step 2: Right click on the uninitialized hard drive and then select 'Rebuild MBR'.
Step 3: Select the MBR type for your OS and click 'OK'.
Step 4: Click 'Apply' button to fix/rebuild MBR.
Free solo 123movies. Solution 3: Partition recovery
Sometimes partition loss would cause disk unknown not initialized issue, if you find disk shows unknown, not initialized, unallocated space in disk management, in this situation, the best way is partition recovery - Find deleted/lost partition and then recover lost data. M3 Data Recovery also supports to recover lost data from deleted/lost partition.
Solution 4: A local data recovery specialist
A hardware issue can also cause disk unknown not initialized error. If there is no disk space in storage media or you encounter disk not initialized I/O device error, it means the hard disk has a hardware issue. In this case, hardware issue is beyond any data recovery software, please send it to a local data recovery specialist.
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Summary
To fix 'Disk Unknown Not Initialized' error on an external hard disk, you should initialize the disk at first. Some succeed, but some fail due to a successive error message 'the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error'. This page is to solve this type of [external hard disk not initialized I/O error]. Data recovery is a safe move to the troubleshooting part, and EaseUS hard drive recovery software can handle it well.
Overview: external hard disk not initialized I/O error
What are the reasons that cause hard drive or external hard drive showing unknown not initialized on your PC? Here is a list of known factors:
- Virus attack
- Bad sectors
- Partition Loss
- File system corruption
- Corrupted Master Boot Record (MBR)
Symptoms of the disk not initialized:
- 1. Disk shows as Unknown, Not Initialized with unallocated space.
- 2. Disk shows as Unknown, Not Initialized with no space displayed.
What's I/O error?
An I/O device error, short for Input/Output device error, happens when Windows is not able to perform an input/output action (such as reading or copying data) when it is trying to access a drive or disk. It can occur to many different types of hardware devices or media.
To fix 'Disk Unknown Not Initialized' error on an external hard disk, you should initialize the disk to GPT or MBR at first. Some succeed, but some fail due to a successive error message 'the request could not be performed because of an I/O device error'.
Combining the two consecutive error messages, here you are. When initializing a disk fails and you're caught up in the other unfamiliar I/O error, where is the way out? This page is to solve this type of [external hard disk not initialized I/O error].
Part 1. Recover data from external hard drive unknown not initialized I/O error
You should know that initializing a disk won't damage data, causing data loss problem at all. It's safe to initialize a disk to a normal state when it shows as unknown not initialized.
To initialize a hard disk in Windows Disk Management:
Step 1. Connect the uninitialized external hard drive, HDD or other storage devices to your PC.
Step 2. Press Win + R keys to bring up Run, and type: diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
Step 3. Find the uninitialized, unknown external hard drive with I/O device error > Right-click on it and select Initialize Disk.
Step 4. Then set the disk to initialize and set the disk as MBR or GPT.
However, this time is different. You cannot perform the manner of initializing a disk because of I/O error. So, you must turn to other workarounds instead of the most approachable one. Fixes beyond initialization could bring data loss, and it's smart for you to recover data from the inaccessible external hard drive before heading to the troubleshooting in Part 2.
EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard is renowned hard drive data recovery software, it's able to recover all types of files, like pictures, raw images and documents from a variety of storage devices, as long as the hard drive itself can be detected by Windows. If the hard drive is not showing up in Disk Management, try to make it visible.
To recover data from external hard drive with I/O error:
Step 1. Choose the external hard drive
Since you're going to recover data from the external hard drive, run EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and under the External Devices tab, choose the exact drive where you lost data. Click Scan.
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Step 2. Scan for lost data
The software will start immediately to scan all over the selected drive for all lost data. During the scan, you could see more and more data showing up in the results.
Step 3. Preview and recover data
After the scan is over, check the scan results for the desired data. You can preview the file by double-clicking on it. Click Recover and choose another location to save the recovered data.
Part 2. Fix external hard drive not initialized with I/O device error
You're going to get rid of such pesky issue and fix external hard drive not initialized I/O error by going to [1] change a connection cable, [2] fix corrupted MBR, [3] use DiskPart command, and [4] remove virus from your PC/laptop.
The fix 2 and fix 4 are available on the linked pages, so we provide the detailed steps of how to use DiskPart command to clean the external hard drive. Since the CMD command would erase all data on the uninitialized hard drive, if you didn't recover data in advance, go to Part 1 to restore lost data after repairing the external hard drive not initialized error with DiskPart commands.
To clean the external hard drive with DiskPart:
Step 1. Press Win+R > Type: diskpart and hit Enter.
Step 2. Type: list disk and hit Enter.
Step 3. Type: select disk n and hit Enter; (replace n with the drive letter of an uninitialized external hard drive.)
Step 4. Type: clean and hit Enter.
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Step 5. Type: convert gpt or convert mbr and hit Enter.
Step 6. Type: create partition primary and hit Enter.
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Step 7. Type: format quick fs=ntfs and hit Enter.
Step 8. Type: assign and hit Enter.
Step 9. Type: exit and hit Enter.
Here, click to copy all the required command lines to fix an external hard drive not initialized I/O error, with the full error message 'the request could not be performed because of an i/o device error'.