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grnowFlag for Singapore

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

had a external USB hard disk under disk management showing not initialize.. you must initialzie the disk before logical disk manager can access it.
 
tried out the steps from this link ...http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/2b069948-82e9-49ef-bbb7-e44ec7bfebdb/

after trying to remove all the usb drivers. the hard disk LED lights shows its connected but the drive was not shown up anymore under disk management.
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motnahp00
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Try using diskpart.

diskpart
list disk
select disk #
clean
create partition primary
format fs=ntfs quick label="THUMB DRIVE"
assign letter Y:
Avatar of Shreedhar Ette
1) Plug in and turn on the external USB hard drive
2) Click Start button
3) Right click on Computer
4) Left click on Properties
5) Click on Device Manager
6) Expand the USB list
7) Find the device
8) Right click - Uninstall
9) Turn off the external USB hard drive
10) Turn back on the external USB hard drive and let it find and install the driver
By: "after trying to remove all the usb drivers. the hard disk LED lights shows its connected but the drive was not shown up anymore under disk management." do you mean you uninstalled the USB controller?
Does anything show up under the "unknown devices" tab? Its a yellow symbol with a question mark on it.
Is it the same cable that came with the external HD? If its not, might be a power cable just for USB. Needs to be a data/power cable.
Same thing happens to a smart phone when you connect it to a computer to use it as an external HD.
Is this USB drive a double Y type USB cable connected drive? In other words does it have power cable as well as data cable? When the USB drive gets not enough power then you can see the problems like yours.
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ASKER

this is USB drive connected using only data cable. yes, had tried to reinstall the usb controllers drivers

shreedhar, had tried to uninstall the usb device from device managers, after which when tries to find the device again, it gives the error, device driver software not successfully installed, USB mass storage device failed and show exclamation mark. the external hard disk is a IDE

motnahp00, your method is to try to reformat the disk? would like to retrieve the data if possible.
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ASKER

the driver exclamation mark is gone if i plug the device to a USB2.0 port. earlier the error occurs if plug to a USB3.0 port. now USB mass storage device is shown up under device manager but i can't see the drive under disk management.
Does your drive have the power cable input?
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ASKER

noxcho, the casing comes with a 5VDC connector.. but i don't have those power cables to test it, normally connected with just the data cable.. will try to test out with another casing.
The best test is take the drive out of the case (if it can be open easily) and connect the drive directly to free SATA port in your desktop. This way you will narrow the problem to its bottle neck. Either HDD is faulty or the case is the problem.
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ASKER

will get back again after testing with another casing
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ASKER

changing to anothe casing also can't detect. another hard disk using the old casing no problem in detecting. seems like its the original hard disk that is not detecting.
What about connecting the drive directly to motherboard sata port?
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ASKER

noxcho, you mean to put the hard disk back to the laptop? don't tink the hard disk is bootable, contains only data.
No. As far as I know this is external USB drive. And if you have PC (not laptop) then it would be nice to connect this HDD from USB enclosure directly to PC mainboard using one of the free SATA connectors. And then try to initialize it or data recovery. This way you can see if the problem is in HDD itself or the USB enclosure.
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ASKER

noxcho, this is a 2.5" hard disk. can't test it by connecting it to another sata port.
2.5 Inch drives do have actually SATA interface. And you can connect them to the same SATA cable that you connect the normal 3.5" drive.
Or is your drive with IDE interface?
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ASKER

sorry for late reply.. mine is with IDE interface..
Normally motherboards have IDE connectors if the mobo is not completely new. Check yours - maybe you have IDE cable as well.
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grnow
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not sure why but the suggestions tried did not resolve the issue