Hardware Forums - View Single Post - Disk status suddenly 'not initialised'

markey164 · 01-03-2007, 08:57 PM

Evening guys,

Looking for some help. I have a 250GB SATA II disk (approx 1 year old) which has been working fine up until now.

Suddenly, although it appears in the promise raid bios boot screen, in Windows it is no longer visible.

Checking disk management shows the disk displayed as 'not initialized'.

Now obviously this status usually appears for 'new' disks, but this is not the case here. From doing some digging it appears the disk may have lost its disk signature and/or MBR.

I have a lot of valuable data on this disk (unfortunately not backed up, although it will be the first thing i'll do if i recover from this!!)

What steps should i take to recover from this please?

Additionally, if i follow the 'initialize disk' wizard, will this simply fix the disk, or will it wipe the existing data on it during the process?

Thanks

Mark

01-03-2007, 08:57 PM	#1 (permalink) Top
markey164 Geek Trainee Join Date: Aug 2006 Posts: 6 Times Helpful: 1 Status: Offline	Disk status suddenly 'not initialised' - Can i fix/repair this? Evening guys, Looking for some help. I have a 250GB SATA II disk (approx 1 year old) which has been working fine up until now. Suddenly, although it appears in the promise raid bios boot screen, in Windows it is no longer visible. Checking disk management shows the disk displayed as 'not initialized'. Now obviously this status usually appears for 'new' disks, but this is not the case here. From doing some digging it appears the disk may have lost its disk signature and/or MBR. I have a lot of valuable data on this disk (unfortunately not backed up, although it will be the first thing i'll do if i recover from this!!) What steps should i take to recover from this please? Additionally, if i follow the 'initialize disk' wizard, will this simply fix the disk, or will it wipe the existing data on it during the process? Thanks Mark