External hard drive shows as 'Not initialized and unknown' in Windows 10, how to fix it? ' Hi guys, do you know how to fix hard disk unknown, not initialized error on your computer?
I have a WD Passport 1TB filled with family photos and movies. For some reason, a few months ago it stopped working. There is no obvious physical damage or anything, it plugs in just fine, turns on, and says that “Mac can’t repair the files but I can still copy them” (or something of that sort). Western Digital's Passport external drive for Mac isn't eternally bound to macOS. By formatting the Passport as an exFAT or FAT32 drive, you can use it with Windows computers, too.
I'm recently having this issue that my computer with Windows 10 cannot read or detect my WD 1TB external hard drive. It shows as unknown or not initialized in Disk Management. I have stored almost 500GB in the disk and I don't know what can I do to fix the external hard drive not initialized error without losing any data. Do you know how to fix this issue? I really need help and please let me know if you have any solutions.
The 'Disk unknown, not initialized' error usually happens to brand new hard drive on a Windows PC. Sometimes, users may also see the 'I/O device' error when their hard drive or external hard drive etc devices become unrecognized on your PC.
What reasons may cause these errors? And how to fix them? Causes for external hard drive not initialized with I/O device error Two major symptoms of the disk not initialized: 1. Disk shows as Unknown, Not Initialized with unallocated space. Disk shows as Unknown, Not Initialized with no space displayed. What are the reasons that cause hard drive or external hard drive not initialized on your PC? Here is a list of reasons that may cause this error on your external hard drive or other storage devices not initialized with I/O device error:.
Virus attack,. Corrupted Master Boot Record,. Partition Loss,. Bad sectors on hard drive,. File system corruption. When any one of the above situations occurs, your hard drive or external hard drive would all become not initialized or unknown with I/O device errors.
So, how to fix these problems and repair external hard drive from not initialized errors without losing any data? How to Fix external hard drive not initialized with I/O device error? Here in this part, you have two methods to try to repair I/O device errors on an external hard drive: Method 1.
Use Disk Management to fix not initialized error on external hard drive. 1. Connect uninitialized external hard drive, HDD or other storage devices to your PC. Press Win + R keys, type: diskmgmt.msc and hit Enter.
Or right-click on This PC Manage to open the Disk Management tool. Find the uninitialized, unknown external hard drive with I/O device error Right-click on it and select Initialize Disk.
Then set the disk to initialize and set disk as MBR or GPT. After this, you may reboot your PC and keep all changes. Now, your external hard drive will be recognized and read by Windows 10 again. If saved data on the external hard disk was lost, don't worry and you may directly jump to Part 2 to restore lost data. Run CMD to repair I/O device error on not initialized external hard drive Since the CMD command would erase all data on the uninitialized hard drive, so please follow Part 2 to restore lost data after repairing the external hard drive not initialized error with CMD: 1. Press Win+R Type: diskpart and hit Enter, 2. Type: list disk and hit Enter, 3.
Type: select disk F and hit Enter; (replace F with the drive letter of an uninitialized external hard drive.) 4. Type: clean and hit Enter, 5.
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Type: convert gpt or convert mbr and hit Enter, 6. Type: create partition primary and hit Enter, 7. Type: format quick fs=ntfs and hit Enter, 8. Type: assign and hit Enter, 9.
Type: exit and hit Enter. How to restore data from the external hard drive after fixing disk unknown, not initialized error? So what can you do to restore the lost data after fixing the external hard drive not initialized error? Here you can directly restore lost external hard drive data with three simple steps now with the help of powerful hard drive recovery software from EaseUS. EaseUS support restoring data from hard drives, external hard drives, SD cards, USB drives under diverse complex situations including I/O device error, and disk not initialized issues.
This software is fully compatible with all Windows systems so, you can use this software to restore precious data from your external hard drive now.