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Will initializing disk make data unrecoverable?
Fresh5 days ago
Mar 15, 2026107153 viewsConfidence Score0%
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Problem
I'm trying to access files from a friend's external hard disk which had stopped showing up in 'My Computer' on his XP machine. I removed the drive (500Gb Seagate SATA drive) and installed it in my Windows 7 PC. The drive is detected by Disk Management but listed as 'Not initialized'. It pops up a '…
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Fix for: Will initializing disk make data unrecoverable?
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No, don't initialize it because you'll wind up with a blank hard drive or an even more garbled one. You might have a drive with failing/failed circuitry or you might just have some corrupted data. I would suggest first trying to restore the drive's …
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