Aces High Bulletin Board
General Forums => The O' Club => Topic started by: RightF00T on June 16, 2009, 08:39:32 PM
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I have a 250GB Hitachi HD with a boatload of raw video files, projects, music projects, MP3s, etc....I get to the Disk Management utility to initialize the disk so that it shows up so I can see the files and I keep getting the error "Logital Disk Manager- Device Not Ready". Now, I have tried recovery programs, registry edits, and generally any dumb advice that the yokels found Google can offer with no avail. Can someone give me a definitive answer of what this error means, because people either have some wierd way of explaining it or want you to pay 19.95 to find the answer to your problems. I really need these files, and I figure we've got some computer whizzes around here. Thanks
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This is an internal hard drive or an external hard drive that uses a USB connection? If it's the latter, try mounting the hard drive inside your computer (if you have a desktop computer). I've seen a few times were the cheap little circuit board on your External HD enclosure goes bad but the Hard drive is still good.
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Its an internal drive...I'm using an adapter right now, but internal I get the same thing
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I've only ever seen that error from disk burners and it simply means that the hardware isn't ready for instructions yet. In the case of disk drives, it's usually that you've just closed the tray and it's doing preliminary checks on the media.
A hard drive that's installed before the system is powered on shouldn't give this error as far as I know. My best guess would be that a component in the drive has failed and the drive is waiting for it.
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What kind of file system is on the disk? Is it encrypted? Vista or XP or ??
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Why did you "initialize" the disk?
Is this a SATA or IDE hard drive?
Did you ever have linux installed on this same drive or a PC with this drive?
Did you by chance have a RAID or change the disk to a dynamic disk?
Was there a change in Operating systems such as WinXP Pro to Vista Home basic?
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Did you try this already:
-- Right click on My Computer, choose Manage
-- Go to the Disk Management section (under Storage)
-- Your disk should be listed in the lower section; it will say Disk 0/1/2 (etc.) and say Not Initialized
-- Right click on the GREY portion of that line (where it has the Disk icon), not the white part (where I was clicking before I realized my error)
-- Choose Initalize. It takes but a moment for it to mount the drive.
-- Give the disk a drive letter
If that won't work and internal direct plugging to different ports won't work you have a dead HD. If you used an adapter, try without it and try different sata / pata ports.
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Make sure the jumper is installed on the drive in the slave position. I've seen this mess up systems before if it's in the master position or if it's removed completely. Depends on the drive.
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If jumpers were the cause, Windows wouldn't see it at all. Any drives it conflicted with would poof too.
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Knowing if the drive was setup in XP or vista would help.
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Drive was installed in a MAC and formatted after use. I then used the drive with an adapter to load my files from the MAC. Brought the drive home and installed it inside the computer(Vista). The drive could be initialized at first so I did that, but no files or the drive showed up in My Computer. Uninstalled drive and used adapter to USB connection and drive still needs initializing? I just think its very strange to have to initialize what the computer sees as an external drive.
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In that case, I would say that the disk is probably formatted in a file system that Windows can't read. However, I know nothing of Macs, so I can't tell you. Pretty much if it isn't FAT16/FAT32/NTFS, Windows won't read it.
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The standard file system for OS X is HFS Plus. Windows can't read that. You need to pop that HD back into the MAC, backup the files and reformat the HD in FAT32, copy the files back onto it and Windows should now be able to read it.
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The standard file system for OS X is HFS Plus. Windows can't read that. You need to pop that HD back into the MAC, backup the files and reformat the HD in FAT32, copy the files back onto it and Windows should now be able to read it.
FAT32 or NTFS
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Yep make sure you formatted the drive with ntfs. Fat32 is not a good solution with its 2 gig file size limitation.
If you have osx leopard the disk utility tool has a clear selection for NTFS in the 'erase / format' section.
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I tried loading onto a MAC and the drive still didn't show up...any other ideas besides expensive hard drive recovery?
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I didn't think OS X supported ntfs?
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I tried loading onto a MAC and the drive still didn't show up...any other ideas besides expensive hard drive recovery?
Without any of us laying hands on the pc/HD i'd say take it in for recovery. It "could" be something simple like a component but, if not you will need to pay for recovery. since the HD is wet, burned or physically damaged it probably wont cost you the proverbial arm and a leg.
Good Luck!