4 Ways to Fix the "Drive Needs to be Formatted" Issue

If your disk suddenly becomes uninitialized and unallocated, as shown in the image below, do not worry; the Windows operating system will warn you that “the disk must be initialized before it can be accessed by the Disk Management.”

This page offers a quick fix and four effective solutions to help you easily resolve this issue. Let's see how to make an uninitialized disk detectable again without losing any data:

# Solution 1: Initialize Disk as MBR or GPT and Recover Data
# Solution 2: Update Drivers for the "Uninitialized" Drive
# Solution 3: Uninstall and Reinstall the Driver for the "Uninitialized" Disk
# Solution 4: Reinstall All USB Controllers

Initialize the disk – Before the Disk Management utility can access a disk, you must initialize it.

Are you one of those Windows users who receive such messages, warning you that you need to initialize a disk? Do you feel anxious when faced with the choice?

Unlike another similar issue "Disk Unknown, Not Initialized", for the "You Must Initialize the Disk" problem, the error message usually provides a solution. It means you need to initialize the selected disk by choosing MBR or GPT as the partition style.

But many users still wonder if it will work with their particular drives. Read on to find out why Windows wants you to do this – and when you really need to.

Identify your disk - a new disk or one that has been used before

1. Brand new hard drive: This hard drive is brand new and unformatted. It currently contains no content. 2. Used hard drive: This is an actively used hard drive, containing a significant amount of data files.

Differences in initializing a new hard disk versus a used one

First, for a new hard drive: "You must initialize the disk before you can..." means that Windows cannot access the drive you have connected. Initializing the disk will rebuild the MBR on the disk so that the Windows operating system can access the target disk. This will allow you to create partitions on the disk and use the disk to save your data.

The second scenario is for a used hard drive: the disk might not be detected by Windows due to a faulty hard drive or other issues, and needs to be initialized. However, initialization will lead to the loss of all data on the disk. In this case, you should perform data recovery immediately after initializing the disk.

How to Fix the 'Drive Must Be Formatted' Error Without Losing Data

The fixes provided also apply to the same error when deleted from an external hard drive, USB, flash drive, SSD, and the like.

You should know that the “Initialize Disk” issue can also occur on an SSD, external hard drive, USB flash drive, and so on. Keep reading and choose the right solution to fix this issue on your hard drive without losing data.

Sometimes, if the disk is not correctly inserted or connected to your computer, the Windows operating system might not be able to load the device, and you might even receive an error message. A quick way to fix this issue is to unplug the disk from your PC, check the SATA and power cables, and plug them back in correctly.

If it doesn't, the drive connection isn't the issue, so try any of the fixes below to get your drive working again.

Fix 1: Initialize the disk as MBR or GPT and recover data

As long as your external hard drive, SSD, or USB drive isn't physically damaged or completely broken (in which case you'll need to replace it), initialization is likely the fastest and simplest solution to your current problem. After that, you can download a tool like Data Recovery Wizard to perform data recovery after initializing the disk. This is also another way to prevent losing everything on it.

First, initialize the disk – HDD/SSD/USB

This applies to both new and old disks that show the “Initialize Disk” issue. The easiest way to initialize a disk is by using the Disk Management, which you can do by following these steps:

Step 1: Right-click "This PC", select "Manage", and enter "Disk Management".

Step 2: Right-click on the disk showing "Uninitialized," and select "Initialize Disk."

Select the disk to initialize

Step 3. In the “Initialize Disk” window, choose the disk style that best matches your system—MBR or GPT—and click OK to continue.

Now, the Disk Management utility will proceed with the formatting. Once it's done, you can create a partition on the new drive and save your files to it. Also see: How to partition hard drive.

All of the partitions on your old hard drive should be listed here. If you lost data due to disk initialization, follow this guide to recover it.

Second, Recover Lost Data from HDD/SSD/USB

As long as Windows detects your drive correctly, tools like the Data Recovery Wizard will see it too. Download and run the software for free, select your hard drive, and hit “Scan” to find all your missing files. This file recovery utility can also fix damaged files on a storage device, like repairing corrupted photos, videos, or documents.

Step 1: Scan the hard drive partition

Select the hard drive where you lost or deleted the files. Click “Scan” to have the data recovery tool scan all lost data and files on the selected drive.

Step 2: Check the results

Once the scanning is complete, you can use the “Filter” option or click on “Search for files or folders” to look for the lost files on the hard drive.

Step 3: Recover Lost Hard Drive Data

Select the files you need from the disk where they were lost and click “Restore” to save them to another location.

After this, you should be able to use your hard drive for data storage again. To prevent this from happening again, you may want to proceed with the repair steps below.

Fix 2: Update " uninitialized" drivers

This approach is less foolproof than Fix #1, but it won't damage the data, so it's worth a try.

Step 1: Open Device Manager (right-click on “My Computer” or “This PC” and select “Manage.” Under System Tools, choose “Device Manager.”)

Step 2. Double-click on the device name to open its Properties window.

Step 3. Go to the Drivers tab, then click Update Driver.

Step 4: Click Search automatically for updated driver software.

Wait for the process to complete, and your disk drive will now be updated to the latest version.

Fix 3: Uninstall and reinstall the disk drive for the “Uninitialized” disk

Step 1: Open Device Manager and expand the "Disk Drives" category.

Step 2. Right-click on your drive and select “Eject” from the menu.

Step 3: Follow the instructions in the wizard, and then restart your computer.

The computer will automatically reinstall the driver that you uninstalled.

Fix 4: Reinstall all USB controllers

Sometimes, if your device is not detected, it might be due to an issue with the USB controller. You can try reinstalling the USB controllers for your device, especially the uninitialized ones, by following these steps:

Step 1: Right-click the Windows icon and select Device Manager.

Step 2. Right-click the USB controller for the problematic drive under Universal Serial Bus controllers, and select Uninstall.

Step 3: Restart your computer, and Windows will automatically reinstall the USB controller software for your drive.

After that, you can access and read the data on the hard drive as normal.

Conclusions

On this page, we've gathered a quick fix and 4 practical solutions to help you with the “The disk must be initialized before it can be used by Disk Management” error message.

Basically, the disk initialization and data recovery software in Solution 1 will fix the issue once and for all.

However, if your disk shows up as “Uninitialized” in Disk Management, it will be undetected and you'll need to update the driver, uninstall the hard drive, or reinstall the USB controller to get it detected again.

"People also ask"

Indeed, we have been researching many disk initialization errors and related issues. We also linked the top three most concerned issues on Google and found the best answers to them.

If you're curious, you can see the answer now.

1. Will initializing a disk erase the data?

Does initializing a disk delete data? The answer is both "yes" and "no." Initializing the disk itself doesn't remove data from it. However, to use the disk, you need to partition and format it, which will lead to data loss. Thus, if you don't want to lose files on your hard drive, using data recovery software is essential.

For more details, see Recovering data from an unmounted disk for help.

2. How do I initialize my new SSD?

Initialize the new SSD via Disk Management, as suggested in Method 1. Alternatively, you can use two other methods to initialize your SSD:

1). Use the CMD initialization disk command; 2). Use the tool Partition Master and its disk initialization function.

Both methods are practical and efficient for this task. You can learn more in the guide on how to initialize HDD/SSD.

3. Should I use MBR or GPT for my new drive?

To answer the question of how you should initialize your disk as MBR or GPT, you first need to understand your underlying intent.

1). Use this disk as the new system disk:

Please open Disk Management, right-click on the system disk and select "Properties" to check the disk partition style. If it's MBR, you should initialize the disk as MBR. If it's GPT, then initialize it as GPT.

2) Use the disk as a data drive:

If you need to create more than four primary partitions, and the disk is larger than 2 TB, initialize it as GPT. Otherwise, initialize it as MBR.