Many customers contact Ontrack after losing data by initializing a disk that contained important files. This blog explores what you should know before initializing a disk.
If your disk already contains essential files, do not initialize the disk. According to Microsoft:
Warning:
If your disk already contains necessary files, don't initialize the disk. You'll lose all the files. Instead, we recommend troubleshooting the disk to see if you can read the files.
At first glance, it may seem as though all your data is lost. In the case of SSDs, the TRIM command may irreversibly destroy data over time.
There are several potential causes for this issue, including:
If hardware errors are the cause, avoid using software solutions to recover your data, as this might worsen the situation.
Initializing a disk involves building or rebuilding the Master Boot Record (MBR), located in the first sector of the hard drive. The MBR contains a partition table that records the locations of different partitions. During initialization, this partition table is cleared.
Initializing a hard drive does not erase all its contents. Instead, it overwrites the partition and root directory structures, making the data inaccessible. However, the underlying data may still exist and could potentially be recovered using specialized software that reads the disk sector by sector, bypassing the partition and directory information.
This issue could be caused by hardware failure, so caution is essential. Follow these steps: