Know How to Initialize An Unallocated Disk in Windows 10, 8, 7

“When I plug in the external drive, it gets successfully installed. But, I am no longer able to view the drive, as it does not appear on “My Computer”. Also, when I check the disk status, it shows that disk 1 is unallocated and not initialized. Please explain the process to initialize an unallocated disk?”

“Please help! As my computer with Windows 10 installed is not able to read or detect my 2 TB external hard drive. While checking the drive in Disk Management, it is showing as unallocated disk. It has almost 500 GB of data stored in the drive. Could someone let me know how to initialize an unallocated external hard drive?”

Most of the users might have encountered such similar instance while dealing with the disk drive. After installing the disk, sometimes the status of the disk can be “disk unknown, need to initialize an unallocated disk”. This issue with the hard drive disturbs the user in their work. A disk with unallocated or unknown status can occur not only in removable drives but also on internal drives of laptops and desktops. Therefore, this blog will help you understand the procedure to be carried out while initializing an unallocated disk.

Methods to Initialize an Unallocated Disk on Windows 10?

After attaching external hard disk, it shows an error message “Disk unknown, need to initialize first.” The error may occur due to various reasons. In the below sections you will get the complete guide to fix disk not initialized error.

• Initialize Unknown Disk Via Disk Management
• Initialize An Unallocated Disk Using CMD in Windows 10, 8, 7

Note: – If in case, the disk is new and need be initialized, then one can perform the above steps without any worry. In other cases, if the drive is already initialized and somehow due to technical failures if it is showing as unallocated or unknown. Then, while initializing an unallocated disk, the existing or stored data will be lost.

As disk initialization wipes away all the data and causes hard drive data loss. The second solution described in this blog, which is CMD command also erases the data. Now, you might be thinking about how to restore the lost data after initializing an unallocated disk. Don’t worry about that, as one can get lost files back.

Solution 1: Initialize An Unknown Disk Using Disk Management

Disk management is the Windows inbuilt utility. Simply follow the steps listed below:

Firstly, right-click on My Computer and select Manage option to launch the Disk Management tool
Navigate the unallocated or unknown hard drive from the tool
Then, right-click on the Unallocated disk and select Initialize Disk
After setting the disk to initialize, set disk as MBR or GPT

After the disk is initialized, reboot the computer and keep all changes. Then, you can see your external hard drive recognized and read by the Windows operating system.

Solution 2: Initialize Unallocated Disk Via Command Prompt

In this method, you have to run commands on the command prompt window. Simply perform the below-mentioned steps:

• To begin with, press Win+R to launch the command prompt
• Now, type diskpart and press the Enter key
• Then, enter list disk and hit the Enter key
• After that, type select disk (drive_letter) and press Enter
• Here, drive_letter is the letter which is allocated to the uninitialized disk
• Now, type clean and hit Enter
• Then, to define the partition as MBR or GPT, type convert GPT or convert MBR and hit Enter
• After that, type assign and press the Enter key
• To exit from cmd, type exit and hit the Enter key

Make Use of Automated Tool to Recover the Lost Data

After carrying out the above steps to initialize an unallocated disk, it is often that the saved data is lost. Now, this can be your any valuable data such as pictures, audio, video, etc. Therefore, a user can use one of the most recommended and trustworthy utility, which is SysTools Hard Disk Recovery Wizard. It is a one-stop solution, which ensures complete recovery of the lost data. This tool is loaded with effective and impressive features, which is capable to recover the lost files after initializing an unallocated disk.

Perform Below Listed Steps

• Initially, install and launch the software on your system
• Select the required Scan options i.e., Scan or Formatted scan
• Once the scanning process completes, it will preview the recovered files and folders
• Now, select the recovered file and click on the Save button to extract the data

Closing Thoughts

Whenever there comes an instance to initialize an unallocated disk, one can perform the above-discussed solutions. But, if the unknown drive contains data, then to recover the lost files make use of the recovery tool mentioned in this blog. With the help of this tool, now users don’t have to worry about any loss of data while initializing an unknown disk. Moreover, one can easily download and install this tool on all versions of Windows operating system.