6 Solutions to “You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it” in Windows

When you failed to access an external drive on computer and got the prompt – “You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it”, you can take the 6 measures in this article to fix it.

Generally speaking, when starting to use a brand new external hard drive, you have to initialize it. In this case, you can initialize it at will in that there isn’t data in it. However, if you’re required to initialize a disk, in which you have stored a lot of data, you must think it over carefully since initializing will erase the drive data. Therefore, when you failed to access an external drive with a prompt – “You must initialize a disk before Logical Disk Manager can access it”, you should not follow its advice to initialize it at once. You’d better take the following solutions to avoid data loss.

Solution 1: Reconnect Disk

Windows may be unable to access the external hard drive due to misconnections. Thus, first of all, you should remove the drive safely. After that, you can reconnect it to your PC. If it still cannot be accessed, you can retry the other USB port or the other computers.

Solution 2: Update Disk Drivers

Moreover, this issue can take place due to the out-of-date disk drivers. Therefore, you need to update the external drive’s drivers by following the steps below.

1. At first, press “Wins + R” to trigger “Run” dialog box.
2. Then, input “devmgmt.msc” and press “Enter” key.
3. In the subsequent window, locate the external disk from the list of “Universal Serial Bus controllers”.
4. Next, right click on it and select “Update Driver Software…” option.
5. After that, in the new window, click “Search automatically for updated driver software”.
6. When searching and updating completes, you can restart PC.

Solution 3: Uninstall & Reinstall Disk

Provided that updating the drive’s drivers doesn’t make effects, you can directly uninstall the drive from your PC and then reinstall it. In this way, Windows is able to automatically detect the device issues and fix them.

1. To start with, take the Step 1 to 3 in the above solution.
2. Then, right click on the target drive and select “Uninstall”.
3. After uninstallation, click “Action” > “Scan for hardware changes” to reinstall it.
4. Now, check if the error persists.

Solution 4: Reinstall All USB Controllers

If reinstalling the drive is not helpful, you can opt to reinstall all USB controllers.

1. Just follow the steps in Solution 2 to find and expand the “Universal Serial Bus controllers” list.
2. Then, uninstall all the controllers one by one.
3. Ultimately, restart PC to let all USB controllers auto detected and reinstalled.

Solution 5: Edit Registry Values

In addition, the “UpperFilters” and “LowerFilters” registry values can also render Windows incapable of accessing the external hard drive. Thus, you can check and delete them to try repairing this issue.

1. First of all, search “regedit” in “Start Menu”.
2. Then, access “Registry Editor” as administrator.
3. Next, navigate to “HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE > SYSTEM” > “CurrentControlSet” > “Control” > “Class” > “{36FC9E60-C465-11CF-8056-444553540000}”.
4. In the right pane, locate and delete “UpperFilters” as well as “LowerFilters” registry values.
5. Eventually, restart your computer.

Solution 6: Initialize Drive & Recover Data

The last solution is to follow the warning suggestion, namely initializing the drive. However, by this means, all the disk data will be erased. Thus, if the disk contains a lot of important data, you should make a disk image for it in advance. Then, you can initialize it. Later, to restore data, you can resort to a data recovery program, such as applying a PST recovery tool to recover damaged Outlook data.

Author Introduction:

Shirley Zhang is a data recovery expert in DataNumen, Inc., which is the world leader in data recovery technologies, including recover Sql Server and outlook repair software products. For more information visit www.datanumen.com