Hi
I have a situation with an external drive which is seen by the system (Win 10) but as not initialized.
I can see it's size thou.

Every article I see about this says that I can simply initialize the disk. But none says if this way I will lose access or not to the files on that drive.

Does anyone knows ?

I also see, most search result are selling programs to transfer data from a non initialized drive to another one. Is there any free program to do that?

Thanks in advance.

EDIT: I also read that I may only have to fix the MBR of that drive....

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2022

Hell @Olymoon, backup your hard drive files with Puran File recovery.
Windows 10 ? How big is the hard disk?

1.) Puran File Recovery - Free - Recovery files unlimited
Puran File Recovery is compatible with Windows XP/2003/Vista/2008/7/8/10 including 64 bit versions
www.puransoftware.com/File-Recovery.html
2. Wise Data Recovery Software - Free - Number of recoverable files 2 GB
www.wisecleaner.com/wise-data-recovery.html
3. OnTrack EasyRecovery - Free - Recover up to 1 GB* of data free of charge.
www.ontrack.com/en-ca/data-recovery/software

Does this then mean that we can initialize a hard disk without losing data? Roughly speaking, no. Initialization only
activates the hard disk, but it does not make it usable. It means that after initializing the hard disk you have
to create partitions on this disk and format the partitions if you want to read and write data on this disk.

Spoiler: Should I choose MPR or GPT?

Should I choose MPR or GPT?

When you initialize the hard disk, you will see that there are two partition styles:
MBR (Master Boot Record) and GPT (GUID Partition Table).
Windows uses the partition style to understand how to access the data on the hard drive.

- GPT is for hard disks and SSDs. GPT is also compatible with hard disks larger than 2TB.
- MBR is for 32-bit PCs, older computers, and removable drives such as memory cards.

Spoiler: Proceed as follows:

Proceed as follows:
- Initialize your hard disk. You will see that you still cannot access the hard disk after initialization.

- Restore the data from your hard disk (opens new window). You cannot access the hard drive through Windows Explorer.
So launch Data Recovery Software (opens new window) to scan for the data and recover it. Save your data to another hard drive.

- Format the hard drive. When you have saved the data you need, then right-click on the hard drive and click "Format".

- Your hard drive is now accessible and you can save your data on it.
Source: www.fonepaw.com/de/windows/initialize-disk-without-losing-data.html

 

Last edited: Aug 29, 2022

WIn 10 yes
Hard drive is 4 TB

 

I have downloaded and installed this program but have not tested it yet. But it looks like you can also recover 4TB data.
Try your luck Olymoon!

Puran File Recovery - Free - Recovery files unlimited
www.puransoftware.com/File-Recovery.html

 

I'm acutally trying Puran. It's scanning since 20mn but shows nothing.

I dont know if it's normal, and it's very slow ...

 

We will only be able to judge the software when someone runs it for several hours.

The main features of Puran File Recovery are:

- Simple and easy to use.
- Find deleted files with just one click within seconds.
- It supports FAT 12, FAT 16, FAT 32 and NTFS.
- Smart Scan scans the hard disk byte by byte for files not shown in Quick Scan.
- The full scan also detects deleted or RAW partitions. It also scans entire hard disks if there are errors in the partition table.
- Allows recovery of files with the same original path as deleted.
- It can recover virtually all data.

Using this tool is very simple. Simply select the device you want to scan and click on the "Scan" button. In a few seconds, the application will return a set of results with the files we can recover. We will select them and save them on a different disc than the original. If the first scan doesn't retrieve our data, we can configure deeper scans with the buttons that appear on the right side of the scan button.

www.informatique-mania.com/de/linformatique/recuperer-des-fichiers-supprimes-ou-supprimes-avec-puran-file-recovery/

 

I had the same problem, and I was able to convert the RAW partition to NTFS without losing any data.
These videos show how to do it, unfortunately I don't have an English version

 

I've had this situation a couple of times and in my case initializing the drives was enough, no lost data.
But I had recent backups, otherwise perhaps I wouldn't have risked it.