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"You must initialize the disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it."

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  • 08-08-2017 10:50pm
    #1
    Gavin "shels"
    Registered Users Posts: 17,965 ✭✭✭✭


    My mates laptop got a blue screen of death and ended up in an Automatic Repair loop which kept on prompting

    "Your PC Ran Into a Problem and Needs to Restart. We're just collecting some error info, and then we'll restart for you."

    I took the HDD out and into my external box. Plugged it to both my laptop and my brothers and it shows up in Device Manager as "USB Device", in Disk Management as "Not Initialized" and is not accessible.

    Would normally try formatting it but all her college work and pictures are on it.

    It was a Windows Vista laptop which I updated 6 months back with a free upgrade iirc. Not 100% of what OS I updated too though.

    Any suggestions?


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    #2
    jca
    Closed Accounts Posts: 8,585 ✭✭✭jca


    Do you know anyone with a Linux computer? Linux tends to be better at accessing discs.


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    #3
    Gavin "shels"
    Registered Users Posts: 17,965 ✭✭✭✭Gavin "shels"


    Think at least one of the lads in work uses Linux. Cheers for the suggestion.


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    #4
    Gavin "shels"
    Registered Users Posts: 17,965 ✭✭✭✭Gavin "shels"


    Seems it was my HDD External Box, tried another one I had lying around and looks to be working!


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    #5
    Oat23
    Registered Users Posts: 15,278 ✭✭✭✭Oat23


    You've probably backed up everything now and done a fresh install, but if it happens in the future:

    Try a hard power cycle since it's a laptop.

    Try entering safe mode and doing things like malware scans, uninstall anything recently installed and do a SFC scan to repair any corrupt system files.

    The power cycle is what fixed a laptop for me a few months ago.


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    #6
    yoyo
    Moderators, Technology & Internet Moderators Posts: 11,016 Mod ✭✭✭✭yoyo


    Gavin shels wrote: »
    Seems it was my HDD External Box, tried another one I had lying around and looks to be working!

    I've seen this with external USB SATA drive adaptors/enclosures before. If you have access to another computer add the hard disk into it and in the bios make sure the boot priority is set to the working disk/OS you have installed on the computer.

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    #7
    Gavin "shels"
    Registered Users Posts: 17,965 ✭✭✭✭Gavin "shels"


    Cheers all


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    #8
    PeterTheNinth
    Closed Accounts Posts: 6,869 ✭✭✭PeterTheNinth


    What I normally do here is to take an image of the disk (with a free tool called Clonezilla) before doing any work on it, if possible. Then attach the disk to another machine, and usually use GetDataBack to see what it can see on the disk. The software is commercial, but cheap enough if you need to get something back badly.


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