Will initializing a drive with data on it – corrupt it?

I have a old 20 GB 3.5 Maxtor which I use as a USB, problem is, I can’t access via my system. I remember initialing this drive on my system some months back, since then I’ve done a full system restore, before my primary drive recognized this Maxtor as a USB device, now my system is identifying the drive as a device, but it’s not letting me access the data I previously stored on it.
It’s being recognized by my USB application.

I see the drive present in my device manager

I also see the drive in my disk management

But it’s being labeled as unallocated, but I remembering initializing this drive some time back.
I have 10 GB of data on this drive that I would not want to lose.
Soooo… would initializing the drive now with the data on it, corrupt it?
Answer #1
Yes changing the disk to gpt or mbr will kill all he data on it, However the disk is already online and initialized it just hasn’t got a partition created.
Id suggest recovering the partition using paragon hard disk manager or similar
Answer #2
Yes changing the disk to gpt or mbr will kill all he data on it, However the disk is already online and initialized it just hasn't got a partition created.
Id suggest recovering the partition using paragon hard disk manager or similar
OOok… I assigned the drive a “L” in my disk management
The dive is not present in “My Computer”
But it wont let me access the drive it’s self, it keeps prompting me to reformat
Please!… I cannot lose this dat on this drive, this is stuff that is very hard to come by, I would never be able to retrieve all this data again.
Please help
Answer #3
Use a data recovery app:
http://www.google.com?t=14050233&start=0
You’ll have to recover the data onto a different HDD, But given the size, I don’t think it’s gonna be
an issue. DO NOT format it til the data has been recovered! You might wanna get it checked with hard disk sentinel too, Partitions don’t just delete themselves out of nowhere! And for future reference, You should always keep backup of your important data! No HDD is bulletproof, And you don’t wanna play with fire.
Answer #4
Use a data recovery app:
http://www.google.com?t=14050233&start=0
You'll have to recover the data onto a different HDD, But given the size, I don't think it's gonna be
an issue. DO NOT format it til the data has been recovered! You might wanna get it checked with hard disk sentinel too, Partitions don't just delete themselves out of nowhere! And for future reference, You should always keep backup of your important data! No HDD is bulletproof, And you don't wanna play with fire.
I am currently at a loss
After initializing the drive with the data on it (as I’ve stated above) an receiving the prompt to format the disk, I immediately turned to my recovery disk software “Active Boot Disk”, an tried to recover data on the drive via my Active Boot Disk program.
Prior to me initializing said drive, my recovery software was not reading the drive, but being as I initialized it, it’s now being read by my recovery disk, but when I scan to recover data, no data is listed as being retrievable from said drive, plus it’s showing that there is no partition present.
I tried your recovery program recommended (EASEUS.Data.Recovery), but was totally unsuccessful at recovering any data on said or a partition.
In fact, EASEUS.Data.Recovery list their being no partition at all?
Hard Disk Sentinel had never been able to fully identify this Maxtor hard drive, even before I had this problem, but Hard Disk Sentinel does show that their is data on the drive.

Now I am back to square 1, the drive just keeps requesting I format it.

an when I press cancel, this is the message that’s displayed?

Answer #5
I would not fiddle around with too much… U might destroy the data completely.
If the Data is Important. Take it to the Pro`s
I`d pay to get it done
Answer #6
When using DRW (or any other data recovery app) you should always select the entire HDD and not any partitions associated
with it! Anyways, You could try the winpe version too:
http://home.comcast.net/~rotten245/trial/fo-r565.zip
Give file scavenger & r-studio a go too if that fails:
http://dfiles.eu/files/w42bl3hxn
http://filerio.in/3o07tg7zkmmq
Password: www.2baksa.net
You could also try a Linux Live CD to see if it can be accessed from there:
http://partedmagic.com
If nothing goes, Then you have only 2 options left:
1. Give Up.
2. Pay for professional data recovery.
Edit It can also be a problem with the enclosure, Get a new one, Or connect it internally (if you got an old desktop with IDE support)
This post has been reviewed and no action was taken - bluerayn