How to Recover Data from an Uninitialized External HDD on Windows?

You can recover your files and data by using a professional data recovery toolset such as iBoysoft Data Recovery Software. Furthermore, re-initializing your external HDD is a viable option for repairing it well for future use.

iBoysoft Data Recovery Software is greatly recommended which features advanced disk scanning and recovery algorithms. It supports recovering data from the uninitialized disk and recovering data from formatted, RAW, inaccessible, corrupted, lost, deleted partitions/volumes, etc.

Step 1: Download and install iBoysoft Data Recovery for Windows on your PC.

Step 2: Connect the uninitialized disk to your Windows computer as an external drive.

Step 3: Launch the recovery tool and select the Data Recovery module in the home window.  

Step 4: Tick the Deep Scan option, click the Next button, then the scanning process will begin automatically.          

Step 5: Right-click the found files to tap the Preview option to see if the found files are intact.      

Step 6: Tick all the data that you want and then click the Recover button.   

Step 7: After the recovery process ends, please save the lost data to another disk.

You can now initialize your external HDD after you have recovered all of your data.

Step 1: Right-click My Computer and Select Manage, then locate and open Disk Management.

Step 2: Right-click the disk and then click the Initialize Disk option.

Step 3: Select MBR partition style (Master Boot Record) and then click the OK button.

Step 4: Select and right-click the unallocated space on the drive and then select New Simple Volume.

Step 5: Select Next, specify the size of the volume, and then select Next.

Step 6: Specify the drive letter that you want to assign to the volume and then select Next.

Step 7: Specify the file system you want to use (usually NTFS), select Next, and then click Finish.        

After the initialization process, go to This PC or Disk Management to check if the hard drive is fixed.

You can also read the following articles for more solutions:

Disk Unknown Not Initialized error: Why and How to Fix?