Solved Unknown - Not Initialized Disk (External HD)

[Matterito]

Hi, i'm new on this forum. I was searching for an answer to this issue in a lot of threads but i didn't find something to fix it.

I built an external hd using the hard disk of my old laptop (Fujitsu MHV2120AH PL) and a Woxter i-Case 240.

When i connected it via USB i went to the Disk Manager and saw the unit as "Disk 1 Unknown Not Initialized". But there was something else, the disk has a size of 120GB but the Disk Manager shows only 700MB.



The Disk Manager didn't allowed me to format this partition and when I press on "Initialize disk" it didn't do anything.

I used a Linux Live CD and I had the same issue, i tried to create a new partition table but it didn't create it and GParted didn't allow me to create a new partition answering that i need a partition table first.

I tried with Diskpart without any result too.

This HD had an Windows XP installed on the old laptop and before dissamble it i made a quick format with the Bootable CD of my laptop. The quick format was interrupted when the program was copying the files necesary to install Windows XP.

Do you have any idea?

 

[CKWD]

Hello Matterito!

You could try a couple of things: changing the enclosure, as this one's controller may be corrupt, or hooking up the disk directly to the computer.
Also, see if your USB drivers need updating.

This HD had an Windows XP installed on the old laptop and before dissamble it i made a quick format with the Bootable CD of my laptop. The quick format was interrupted when the program was copying the files necesary to install Windows XP.

Following this, it may be that your disk is just damaged. It could be just that the partition table is corrupted, so may be writing full zeros to the disk and repartitioning and reformatting it would help fix the issue. That is in the case that you don't need the information on the drive.

CK_WD

 

[Matterito]

Tanks for your advice CKWD, I solved the problem

First of all I tried to fix the old laptop, the problem was the fan that didn't work. I dissambled the laptop and removed the fan. I saw that it wans't working because it was crashing with the container. So i removed part of the container and inserted the fan again. When I turned on the laptop it worked without shutting down due to high pics of temperature as before.

Next I used the Paragon Partition Manager and wiped the Hard Drive completely, the process took almost 2 hours and I was afraid that the laptop could not deal with the temperature or the fan could turn off, but i was lucky and the program completed the wipe.

Lastly I connected the Hard Disk to the Woxter i-Case 240 via USB in my newest laptop and the Disk Manager detected the Hard Disk with the complete size (104,68 GB) and i gave it format. Now it runs correctly.

Thanks again for yout support CKWD

 

[CKWD]

Great job! I'm happy for you managing to fix your drive!

I didn't suggest the wiping/writing zeros option as I wasn't sure if there was any information on it from before, but, usually this would be the last but certain step of fixing a similar HDD issue.

Cheers!

CK_WD