How to Recover Accidentally Initialized External Hard Drive

“If there is an issue with the external hard drive, in some cases you may be asked to initialize the device. If you’re not aware that initializing actually erases all data on the device and you perform the operation, you may be in trouble. Initializing will wipe the disk empty and prepare it for use.”

In cases where the external hard drive is brand new, you may be asked to initialize the device. Here it’s ok to do so, because there won’t be any data on the new device.

If you have accidentally initialized your external hard drive without understanding the consequences, it’s alright. We are here to help you recover data.

Yodot Software provides some of the best hard drive recovery solutions for use in various data loss situations. You can use the software to recover data easily after you’ve initialized the drive. It can also be used with corrupt, inaccessible and formatted drives. Refer how to restore formatted external hard drive to understand the complete process.

The software is built with advanced scanning algorithms to scan the hard drive thoroughly and recover data. All your partitions are recovered safe and sound with complete directory structure intact. Also the software works on a read only mechanism, so you’ll have no surprises in the recovered data.

More on Yodot Hard drive Recovery Tool:

To easily sift through recovered files, a Find feature is provided in the software. You can look for individual files using the Find feature. Also, you can sort the recovered files using date, size and file type making it convenient to view required files.

In addition to recovering data from external hard drives, the software also supports recovery from other storage devices such as USB’s, memory cards etc.

The software supports all kinds and brands of external hard drives. This is by no means a comprehensive list per se, but some of the most common supported brands are WD, SanDisk, Seagate, Transcend, HP etc. All types of hard drives such as IDE, SATA, SCSI, SSD etc. are supported.

Compatibility of Yodot Hard drive recovery software:

• Supports all Windows OS versions such as Windows 10, Windows 8, 8.1, Windows 7, Windows XP, etc.
• Provides a Mac version called Yodot Mac Hard drive recovery to support Mac devices and all Mac OS versions
• All file systems such as FAT16, FAT32, NTFS etc. are supported

Steps to recover accidentally initialized external hard drive:

• Download and install Yodot Hard Drive Recovery application in the system by using local system administrator account
• As soon as installation process gets completed, user can view shortcut icon on desktop. Connect the accidentally initialized external hard drive to the system.
• Run the program and from main screen of the utility click on ‘Partition Recovery’ option and then carry on to next window
• Select respective drive from which you want to recover data and then initiate scanning of selected hard drive
• Upon completion of scanning procedure, user can view rescued list of files in ‘Data View’ or ‘File Type View’
• Choose desired view type and then save recovered data to available destination location on computer hard drive or on different storage media

Note: After you have initialized your hard drive, it is best to avoid using the hard drive until recovery is complete. Using the drive will overwrite data on it and make recovery difficult.

Also, it may be tempting to use other DIY methods to recover data on the drive. But this will only hamper the chances of successful recovery. Hence it is best to use reliable third party tools such as Yodot for the same.

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