[SOLVED] HardDrive unknown and not initialised

Toggle sidebar Toggle sidebar
Status
Not open for further replies.
H

harddrivehelpplease938

Feb 6, 2022
15
1
10
Hello, So a couple of months ago I bought an external Hard drive and transferred a lot of important files on to it, all of a sudden it doesn't show up, when plugged in it makes a sound but doesnt show on my PC - when i check device management it says unknown and not initialised. Does anybody know how to fix this? - I dont want to risk losing the data
 
Solution
Darkbreeze
You have that data backed up elsewhere in addition to on the hard drive, right? If not, that's a mistake and a big problem. You should always, ALWAYS have any important data backed up to more than one location, like flash drive, optical disks (CD, DVD, BD), another internal or external drive, your primary drive, cloud storage, etc., because it's NEVER a question of whether a drive will fail or not, it's only EVER a question of WHEN. New drives fail all the time and some old drives keep on chugging even after years and years. You can't trust important data to be in only one location without expecting that something like this might happen, because, it always does.

Does the drive show up in the BIOS or in disk management...
Sort by date Sort by votes
You have that data backed up elsewhere in addition to on the hard drive, right? If not, that's a mistake and a big problem. You should always, ALWAYS have any important data backed up to more than one location, like flash drive, optical disks (CD, DVD, BD), another internal or external drive, your primary drive, cloud storage, etc., because it's NEVER a question of whether a drive will fail or not, it's only EVER a question of WHEN. New drives fail all the time and some old drives keep on chugging even after years and years. You can't trust important data to be in only one location without expecting that something like this might happen, because, it always does.

Does the drive show up in the BIOS or in disk management?

https://www.lifewire.com/disk-management-2625863

Have you tried a different USB port and/or USB cable?

What are your full hardware specs?
 
Last edited:
Upvote 0 Downvote
Solution
Is it making normal HDD sounds or something different than what you've heard it make before? Try different cables. Shorted cables can cause serious problems with external drives. Since the drive is in an external enclosure, the next thing to try would be to migrate the drive to a different enclosure. If you get the same problem, you can exclude the enclosure as the hardware that's failing. Should you still have an issue, try connecting it to another machine. If after all that you still have a problem reading the drive, it's a safe bet that the drive is dying.

If the drive goes kaput, your only option for data recovery will be to send it to a recovery lab and that's going to cost you. Always back up your stuff. If it's particularly important, you should have at least 2 backups in addition to your working copy.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Darkbreeze said:
You have that data backed up elsewhere in addition to on the hard drive, right? If not, that's a mistake and a big problem. You should always, ALWAYS have any important data backed up to more than one location, like flash drive, optical disks (CD, DVD, BD), another internal or external drive, your primary drive, cloud storage, etc., because it's NEVER a question of whether a drive will fail or not, it's only EVER a question of WHEN. New drives fail all the time and some old drives keep on chugging even after years and years. You can't trust important data to be in only one location without expecting that something like this might happen, because, it always does.

Does the drive show up in the BIOS or in disk management?

https://www.lifewire.com/disk-management-2625863

Have you tried a different USB port and/or USB cable?

What are your full hardware specs?
Click to expand...

So to answer your questions, I did not backup the data anywhere else, I'm not super angry if the data is gone however I'd like to try every route to try and restore the data.

The drive does show in disk management and i'm pretty sure BIOS too, in disk management it says (Disk 2, Unknown, Not Initialised) I've tried every USB port on my computer, I have not tried to use another cable.

My motherboard is a ASUS P9X79
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Banqu0 said:
Is it making normal HDD sounds or something different than what you've heard it make before? Try different cables. Shorted cables can cause serious problems with external drives. Since the drive is in an external enclosure, the next thing to try would be to migrate the drive to a different enclosure. If you get the same problem, you can exclude the enclosure as the hardware that's failing. Should you still have an issue, try connecting it to another machine. If after all that you still have a problem reading the drive, it's a safe bet that the drive is dying.

If the drive goes kaput, your only option for data recovery will be to send it to a recovery lab and that's going to cost you. Always back up your stuff. If it's particularly important, you should have at least 2 backups in addition to your working copy.
Click to expand...
the HDD has never made a sound really, even when it was working there was never any sound coming from it, it's a Seagate portable drive model SRD0NF1, I've never tried a different cable, but when plugging in the HDD my pc recognises it's been plugged in as it makes a windows sound but it says not initialised and unknown, does that mean the cable is fine or could it still be the cable?
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
harddrivehelpplease938 said:
the HDD has never made a sound really, even when it was working there was never any sound coming from it, it's a Seagate portable drive model SRD0NF1, I've never tried a different cable, but when plugging in the HDD my pc recognises it's been plugged in as it makes a windows sound but it says not initialised and unknown, does that mean the cable is fine or could it still be the cable?
Click to expand...

Without trying a new cable it's not possible to definitively eliminate that as the point of failure. However, if your hard drive is making sounds it's never made before in conjunction with your system not recognizing it, that strongly indicates a drive failure.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Banqu0 said:
Without trying a new cable it's not possible to definitively eliminate that as the point of failure. However, if your hard drive is making sounds it's never made before in conjunction with your system not recognizing it, that strongly indicates a drive failure.
Click to expand...
I think i should try a new cable, and sorry for the confusion but the HDD has never made any sounds 😀
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
SkyNetRising said:
Can you show screenshot from Disk Management?
(upload to imgur.com and post link)
Click to expand...
D7LfbAf.png
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Upvote 0 Downvote
The fact that the external device identifies itself as a "JMICRON JMS579 USB Device" suggests that the OS is talking to the JMicron USB-SATA bridge IC inside the enclosure. If this is the original Seagate enclosure, it should identify as a Seagate product, not JMicron.
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
fzabkar said:
It means that the JMicron bridge IC cannot find a Seagate hard drive. This means that the hard drive is probably dead. If you don't mind voiding your warranty, remove the HDD from the enclosure and connect it to a SATA port inside your computer. In fact, this procedure shouldn't void your warranty, at least not in the USA.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magnuson–Moss_Warranty_Act
Click to expand...
I dont care about the warranty so I think Ill try this
 
Upvote 0 Downvote
Status
Not open for further replies.

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts

Moderators online

Share this page

COMPANY
RESOURCES
FOLLOW
Top Bottom