Will initializing my sata drive reformat it?

[boostergold]

My laptop crashed and wouldn't recognize my hard drive. I have installed the SATA drive in an enclosure and connected it to another laptop. Everything seems fine, no unusual noises or clicking, but it doesn't show up in explorer. When I go to computer management I find it there, but it is uninitialized. Will initializing it destroy the data on the hard drive?

 

[Hawkeye22]

If you are referring to disk management, then yes, initializing will destroy data. If you were to use recovery software immediately after initializing, you may recover some data, but it's best not to initialize the drive if you know you want the data off of it.