Disk 1 Unknown Not Initialized External Hard Drive

If you newly bought an external hard drive or SSD, you must initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it. Or you may want to initialize or reformat hard a disk for reuse or when the hard drive not working. This post will guide you to initialize, create new partition, and format external hard drive on Windows computers.

Note:Also work for hard drives, USB flash drives, SD card, and other mainstream storage devices.

Tips: Make sure you have backed up files (if any) on the external drive as the following operations will wipe your data off the drive. If you can't access your data for disk corruption, using iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows to get files off first.

There are two ways to initialize, format, or reformat external hard drives.

I have been researching a solution non stop and today when i plugged it in once again something worst happened, this time I see a External HD not Detected: Disk 1, Unknown, Not Initialized in Disk Management. Can someone please help? We get an external drive to protect our data and not loose it and then this happens. Select the category of the devices and double-click on the one you want to update driver for. Right-click on the driver. If you see the Update driver option, select it.

Method 1: Initialize and Format External Hard Drive with Disk Management

How to initialize an external hard drive on Windows?

1. Right-click This PC/My Computer and choose Manage in the context menu to enter Computer Management.
2. Select Disk Management on the left sidebar and open this utility.
3. Connect your external hard drive to your PC. New SSD or hard drive will prompt to initialize.
4. Right-click on the external hard drive marked as 'Unknown' and 'Not Initialized', then choose Initialize Disk. If the external hard drive is listed as Offline, you need to first right-click it and set it back to Online.

Tips: Some USB drives may not have the option 'Initialize Disk', then you just need to jump to get the disk formatted for work.

5. Click OK to accept the default partition style or change the partition style as you like.

For partition styles, you have two options on Windows computers.

Most PCs use the GUID Partition Table (GPT) disk type for hard drives and SSDs. It’s more robust and allows for volumes bigger than 2 TB.
Master Boot Record (MBR) is used by 32-bit PCs, older PCs, and removable drives such as memory cards that have a size smaller than 2TB.

How to create new simple volume for external hard drives in Disk Management?

After choosing the partition style for the drive you want to format, you can now partition this external hard drive.

1. Right-click on the external hard drive (often marked Unallocated space) and select the New Simply Value option.
2. Click Next and follow the wizard to specify the volume size, assign the drive letter, and choose the File System you want.

For the disk file system, three types are available in Windows.

Choose FAT32 if your external hard drive is less than 1 TB. And if each file of yours is less than 4 GB ( like photos, songs, documents), FAT32 is fine to use.
You can choose exFAT if your external hard drive is relatively large and you want to use the external hard drive for Mac and Windows.
Choose NTFS if your external drive is an SSD or a large-capacity hard drive. Also, for Windows installation and file backups, NTFS is a more ideal option.

3. Click Finish to complete this process.

How to format external hard drives on Windows?

If the external hard drive is initialized and you need to reformat it for reasons like disk corruption, you need to:

1. Find the external hard drive in Disk Management, right-click on it, and choose Format from the contextual menu.
2. Then set the disk information, including allocation unit size, volume label and file system.
3. Check Perform a quick format and click OK to format the external hard drive.

Method 2: Initialize and Format External Hard Drive with Diskpart

Another way to do this is through the command prompt with diskpart command line. To initialize a new disk or wipe an existing disk, using Windows snap-in tool - Diskpart with the following steps.

1. Click Start, type 'cmd' in the search bar, press Enter, and then run the Command Prompt as an administrator.
2. In the pop-up window, type 'diskpart' in the prompt and press Enter and then type 'list disk' to list all the disks detected by your computer.
3. Type 'select disk' and the external hard drive that you want to initialize and press Enter. For example, 'select disk 2'.
4. Type 'attributes disk clear readonly' and press Enter if you don't want other to make changes to your hard drive, or else, skip this step.
5. Type 'online disk' and press Enter so that Diskpart can access it in online condition.
6. Type 'convert mbr' or 'convert gpt' and press Enter to change the selected disk to MBR or GPT partition table.

Now you have initialized the disk with Diskpart, you can create partition and format the external hard drive for file saving.

7. Type 'list disk' again and press Enter to list all disks so that you know the disk number on which you want to create a partition.
8. Type 'select disk 2 ' and press Enter. You need to replace 2 with the number of your external hard drive.
9. Type 'create partition primary size=61440'and press Enter. Replace 61440 with the free space that you want to allocate for the partition.
10. Assign a drive letter by typing assign letter=H and press Enter. You can replace H with other available drive letters.

Now, a new partition is created on the external hard drive. But to save files on the disk, a partition needs to be formatted.

11. Type 'list volume' and press Enter to list all the volumes under this disk.
12. Find the target volume and then type ' select volume * ' and press Enter. Replace * with your volume number.
13. Type 'format fs=ntfs quick label=test' and press Enter. You can replace ntfs with the file system you want (like exfat and fat32) and label it with a different name.

After the external hard drive is initialized, partitioned, and formatted, you'll be able to save photos, videos, documents, or whatever you want on the hard drive.

Unknown Disk Not Initialized Fix

Generally, if your disk shows not initialized, it's probably caused by MBR corruption or physical damage. If your disk becomes unknown and not initialized and shows as unallocated space, you can initialize the disk and then recover data with EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to fix the issue. If Disk Management shows no information about your disk capacity, you will need other fixes provided to have a try.

Solution 1, solution 2, and Solution 3 apply to fix disk is not initialized and shows unallocated. And Solution 4, solution 5, and solution 6 use to fix disk is not initialized and shows nothing about disk capacity. You may follow the quick guide:

Disk 1 Is Unknown, Not Initialized, Unallocated

'When I plugged in my external hard drive, Western Digital My Passport 0740 (500GB), PC said that it's successfully installed however it did not appear on My Computer. Also when I went into system tools it said that disk 1 is unknown, not initialized, unallocated. Does anyone know how to recover data when a hard drive is not initialized or how to initialize disk without losing data?'

Symptoms

Like the case above, 'Disk Unknown Not Initialized' issue usually attacks unexpectedly in all the Windows version, including Windows 10, 8, 7, and annoys numerous users. When it happens, your external hard drive may show 'unallocated space' or nothing about the disk capacity in Disk Management (like in the image below), so you are not able to open and access the data on this disk.

Causes

Although the disk shows 'Unknow, Not Initialized' in both of the situations. They present different information about the capacity of the hard drive, which means they are caused by different reasons.

If 'disk unknown not initialized' is accompanied by 'unallocated', the cause is likely to be MBR corruption on the hard drive. MBR, Master Boot Record, is the first sector on an MBR or GPT disk. It provides information on loading Windows and on the partition of the disk. Thus, when it is corrupted, you will certainly encounter issues, including disk showing as 'Not Initialized'.

However, if your disk 1, disk 2, or another disk becomes 'Not Initialized' without any information about the disk storage, the causes may be a connection issue, disk driver issue, or physical corruption on the disk.

How to Fix Disk Unknown Not Initialized in Windows 10/8/7

Depending on your situation, you will have different solutions to the problem 'disk not initialized' on your computer, be it a local hard drive or external hard drive.

To fix a disk becoming 'Not Initialized' in such a case, you can initialize the disk directly. Then here comes the question - does initializing a disk erase data? Actually, Initializing a disk will rebuild the master boot record. It WON'T ERASE the data on the disk. However, to make the disk usable again, you need to further partition and format the disk, which will erase the files on your hard drive. Thus, to fix 'disk not initialized', you are recommended to :

Initialize the hard drive
Recover data from the disk and create new volumes
Partition and format the disk to make it ready for data storage

Solution 1. Initialize Disk

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows unallocated.

It is the easiest way to fix disk unknown not initialized issue.This also works to initialized a brand new hard drive.

Step 1. Just right-click 'My Computer' > 'Manage' to run Disk Management.

Step 2. Here, right-click the hard drive and click 'Initialize Disk'.

Step 3. In the dialog box, select the disk(s) to initialize and choose MBR or GPT partition style.

After initializing the disk, you can now recover data from your disk. Based on your needs, you can either recover data only from the disk or recover both the partitions and the files on it.

Solution 2. Recover Data from Hard Drive and Create New Volumes

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows unallocated.

Here, if you have important files on the external hard drive, you can try the hard drive recovery software - EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard to recover the files from the inaccessible disk.

Step 1. Run data recovery software to scan data.

Select the location of your hard drive/external hard drive. The not initialized partition could be named as 'Lost Partition' in the user interface. Click 'Scan' to start scanning lost data on the hard drive.

Step 2. Filter wanted files.

Once the scanning process completes, you can quickly find your lost files by clicking 'Filter'.

Step 3. Preview and recover data.

You can double-click the found files one by one to preview. Afterward, select the items you want to retrieve. Click 'Recover', choose a location to save the files, and then click 'OK' to start recovering the selected content.

If you recover data only, you will need to partition the disk by yourself following the steps below.

Step 1. Right-click 'This PC' and choose 'Manage' > 'Disk Management'.

Step 2. Right-click the unallocated space and choose 'New Simple Volume...'

Step 3. In New Simple Volume Wizard, click 'Next' to continue.

Step 4. Follow the wizard to specify the volume size, assign a drive letter to the volume, and then format the partition.

If you don't want to create partitions by yourself, you can recover partitions on your disk that shows 'Not Initialized', which will help you restore the original partitions on the hard drive.

Solution 3. Perform a Partition Recovery

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows unallocated.

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows unallocated.

Download and launch the reliable partition tool - EaseUS Partition Master on your computer. With it, you can recover the partition on your hard drive with ease.

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Partition Master on PC

Click on 'Partition Recovery' at the top of the main window.

Step 2. Select a hard disk to search for the lost partition(s)

Choose the hard drive disk or SSD where you lost partitions, and click 'Scan'.

Step 3. Wait for the scanning process to complete.

This program will scan the whole disk with two modes - 'Quick Scan' and 'Deep Scan' to find all lost partitions and data for you.

Quick Scan will find your latest deleted partition with a fast speed.
Deep scan will scan and find more and earlier deleted partitions.

Step 4. Select and recover lost partitions

Hard Drive Unknown Not Initialized

1. Select the lost partition, marked as 'Deleted' with previous Labels, capacity etc, and click 'Proceed' to continue.
2. Click 'Recover Now' to confirm and restore the lost partition.

3. Click the 'Execute Operation' button and click 'Apply' to restore lost partition.

Besides, you can also rebuild MBR to try to fix 'disk unknown not initialized'.

Situation 4. Check Disk Connection

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows nothing about disk capacity.

Minor connection issue can cause serious problems like the one in the discussion. To check the connection, you can:

Connect your Toshiba external hard drive to another USB port, including the rear ones, on your computer
Use the original cable to connect your hard drive
Use another cable to connect your Toshiba hard disk
Connect your Toshiba hard drive to another computer

Situation 5. Update Device Driver

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows nothing about disk capacity.

An outdated or corrupted disk driver may also be the culprit. Updating the device driver can be easily done in Device Manager.

Step 1. Right-click on 'This PC' (in Windows 10) and choose 'Properties'.

Step 2. Click 'Device Manager' then expand “Disk drives”. Find and right-click the problematic disk and select 'Update driver'

Step 3. Click 'automatically search for driver software online'.

Step 4. Wait for the driver to be updated, then reboot your computer. Afterward, you can try to reconnect your USB drive to PC and check whether the USB drive shows up or not.

Situation 6. Send for Manual Repair

Applies to: Fix disk is not initialized and shows nothing about disk capacity.

Physical damage will inevitably result in serious issues on a storage medium, including 'disk unknown not initialized'. If the methods above fail to solve the problem for you, sending your device to professionals for manual repair is a good choice.

Extra Tip: How to Fix Cannot Initialize Disk in Windows

A common reason that leads to 'disk unknown not initialized' is that you fail to initialize the drive with a message saying 'The request could not be performed because of I/O error', which, afterward, will cause your disk to be shown as Unknown or Not Initialized.

When you can't initialize a hard disk, 'disk unknown not initialized' is not the only issue that you may encounter. For the detailed explanation and corresponding solutions, go to the article about how to fix the i/O device error.

If the guide cannot help you solve the problem, you are highly recommended to ask help from experts for manual repair or directly replace it with a new disk.

The Bottom Line

Although initializing a disk won't erase data on the device, the further operations will. Thus, if you want to fix a disk that is not initialized without losing data. Data recovery software is needed. However, if your disk shows 'Unknow, Not Initialized' due to physical corruption, no data recovery software will help and only manual data recovery services have the chance to rescue your files.

FAQs About Disk Is Not Initialized

1. How do I fix disk 1 unknown is not initialized?

Hdd Not Initialized

As mentioned on this page, there are basically 6 ways that can work to help you fix Disk 1 Unknow is not initialized error. They are:

1). Initialize the disk with Disk Management
2). Recover data from the unknown hard drive and create new volumes.
3). Preform partition recovery from the unallocated & not initialized drive.
4). Check the hard drive connection
5). Update hard drive driver
6). Send the hard drive for manual repair.

For a detailed guide, you can rever to the main content on this page and try any method to make your disk work again.

2. How do I force a hard drive to initialize?

As for a new hard drive, you may directly follow the steps below to initialize it.

As for a used hard drive, you may need to copy or back up all saved data to another device first. Then use Disk Management to delete all existing partitions. Then continue with the following steps to initialize the drive.

Step 1. Open Disk Management.

Step 2. Right-click the not initialized HDD/SSD and select 'Initialize Disk'.

Step 3. Select the disk to initialize in the dialog box and set the disk partition style as MBR or GPT.

3. Will initializing a disk erase it?

Solely initializing a disk won't erase its data. But in order to use the disk, you need to further partition and format the disk, which will cause data loss.

Thus, if you don't want to lose files existing on your hard drive, using data recovery software is necessary. You may refer to Recover Data from Unknown Not Initialized Hard Drive for a detailed guide.