Thread: Problems Initializing Disk

Hi all.
I have a 2.5" 40Gig drive that supposedly crashed. I connected it to a USB to SATA/IDE adapter and plugged it into the computer. Opened Disk Management, which saw the disk as Disk 1. I right clicked and tried to "Initialize Disk", but I get the error The Device is Not Ready". I then hooked up another 2.5" disk which I know is good, and I get the same error. I tried in several USB ports, same thing. I know the adapter works, as I've used it before. Any ideas?

If you know one drives are ok then it has to be your pc or the adapter, is your 40gb Sata? you could connect it directly to then motherboard (unless your using a laptop)..

Do you have access to another PC/laptop you can try it on?

Originally Posted by Tech-Master

If you know one drives are ok then it has to be your pc or the adapter, is your 40gb Sata? you could connect it directly to then motherboard (unless your using a laptop)..

Do you have access to another PC/laptop you can try it on?

Yup - Using a laptop. But they are old drives - at least 6 years old, so not SATA.

They are dead - well, one of them is for sure....the other I got to work enough to install the OS, but it has failed a "reallocated sector count" and that was probably why it wasn't working. Once I got it warmed up enough it let me install an OS and so I could see the failure with PassMark DiskCheckup.

Thanks!

Originally Posted by simrick

Hi all.
I have a 2.5" 40Gig drive that supposedly crashed. I connected it to a USB to SATA/IDE adapter and plugged it into the computer. Opened Disk Management, which saw the disk as Disk 1. I right clicked and tried to "Initialize Disk", but I get the error The Device is Not Ready". I then hooked up another 2.5" disk which I know is good, and I get the same error. I tried in several USB ports, same thing. I know the adapter works, as I've used it before. Any ideas?

I have this same problem. But I have a brand new OCZ Vertex series SSD SATA II. I have a Lenovo Thinkpad with Vista Ultimate. Whatever I try I cannot initialize the disk. I am trying to clone it using an Apricorn USB Kit but it is impossible to reach the disk. I have been around the web searcing for answers but still no luck.

Originally Posted by Mellis

I have this same problem. But I have a brand new OCZ Vertex series SSD SATA II. I have a Lenovo Thinkpad with Vista Ultimate. Whatever I try I cannot initialize the disk. I am trying to clone it using an Apricorn USB Kit but it is impossible to reach the disk. I have been around the web searcing for answers but still no luck.

I would try this: put the new HDD in the laptop, pull out your Vista restore disk and try installing the OS on the new HDD. Perhaps the OS formatting process will render the disk initialized and readable. Then you can pull it out, put the old one back in and proceed with Apricorn.