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fix Disk Unknown Not Initialized m-2 drive without any data loss

Anonymous
2020-04-01T19:55:13+00:00

I have a very stressful and ongoing problem I'd like help with, please. 

About a week ago, my acer swift 3 was working fine (windows 10). One evening it was slow, so i restarted it. it worked fine after this, i watched an episode of a show online, and then closed the laptop and went to bed. The next day I opened my laptop to use it, and the device would't boot. it spent 2 days with the acer screen, and the loading wheel. I tried booting and pressing F2, then selecting save and exit, as advised on the acer forum. This did nothing but change the issue to a 'no bootable device' error. 

I bought a windows recovery USB to boot from, and tried to go down the 'repair your computer' route, but this did not work, as my drive was not being recognised, and no restore points had been created (that i could access)

I eventually bought an m-2 enclosure, opened up the laptop and removed the m-2 drive. I installed the drive into the enclosure, and connected it to another PC, however the drive did not show up. After some searching online, I used disk management, and only then can i see the drive. At first it asked me to initialise the drive, which i selected yes to (without much thought) but then I got an error, something along the lines of 'could not initialise die to fatal error'. So, the drive is not initialised. I now know this is good, since that would have wiped it.  

After some more research, it seems the issue could be that I need to fix the MBR. However, I don't know if this would delete my data, and safe data recovery here is paramount.

At the moment, the drive (in disk management) is showing as: 

Disk 1

Unkown

238.47GB                238.47GB 

Not Initialised         Unallocated 

What can I do? Can i use command prompt to repair the MBR, and will that help? How can I ensure no data is lost? If I need to use a service, which should I use? Please help me, I'm at a loss what to do. 

The laptop was purchased in 2018, july

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2020-04-02T05:13:24+00:00

    You spoiled running os made into corruption by installing different softwares and uninstalling software. By doing each and every time, windows os might get started corrupted. Ay last now disk condition is not intialised, so im this i can conform OS already formatted or  MBR is deleted or corrupted.

    -> I beg to disagree. Installing third-party software might damage Windows but it will not result in an uninitialised disk.

    To conform this boot with windows usb, run chkdsk for C drive.  If chkdsk scan finishes within minute,then os is already deleted.

    -> You cannot run chkdsk on an uninitialised disk. Furthermore, running chkdsk is risky because it often turns files that might be readable into unreadable chunks of data.

    My advice to the OP is: If he values his data then he should leave the recovery to the experts. His own attempts might turn a bad situation into one that is much worse.

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  2. Anonymous
    2020-04-01T20:38:10+00:00

    At first it asked me to initialise the drive, which i selected yes to (without much thought) but then I got an error, something along the lines of 'could not initialise die to fatal error'. So, the drive is not initialised.

    -> If the disk requires initialisation then it has suffered serioius damage, much more than just a missing MBR. You can attempt to repair it with SeaToolsforWindowsSetup.exe (to be downloaded from the Seagate web page), then use one of the many partition recovery tools that you will find with a Google search. My strong suspicion is that you will have to use your backup medium to restore your files.

    2 people found this answer helpful.
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  3. Anonymous
    2020-04-01T21:25:51+00:00

    Thanks for the reply. I do not have any backups, what do you mean by backup medium? 

    As a forum respondents it is always difficult to remind posters that important files must at all times be stored on two independent media: Inside the PC an on an external device. Many people ignore this rule until they suffer a major catastrophe, as seems to be the case here. An external USB disk of 500 GBytes costs less than $50, a small cost compared to the value of your data. If you have no backup then your data is probably lost.

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  4. Anonymous
    2020-04-01T21:28:30+00:00

    I had meant to do it, I just hadn't had any spare income recently to buy one with. I know you're right. Would sending the drive to a data recovery lab be likely to work? They're very expensive but it would be worth it if it would recover my data

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  5. Anonymous
    2020-04-01T21:01:41+00:00

    Thanks for the reply. I do not have any backups, what do you mean by backup medium?

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