I accidentally formatted my active hard drive using Windows 11 Disk Management. Since then, the drive won't initialize and Windows reports that the selected drive doesn't exist. I've also tried GParted, macOS Disk Utility, a Linux installer, and various Windows and recovery-environment partition tools, but none of them can access or repair it. I managed to fix a similar problem years ago, but I can't remember what worked. Is there still a way to recover the drive or its data?
2 Answers
The formatting itself probably isn’t what killed it. A failing or aging drive can stop responding coincidentally, and the message saying the selected drive doesn’t exist suggests the system may not be communicating with it properly. Disconnect it and avoid repeated repair attempts if you need the data; professional recovery may be the safest option. If the data isn’t important, replacing it with an SSD is likely more practical.
Formatting through Disk Management usually doesn’t physically brick a healthy hard drive. If every operating system and partition tool fails to detect or initialize it, the drive may have developed a hardware or firmware failure around the same time. You could try a reputable bootable partition utility, but avoid writing anything else to the disk if the data matters.
I’ve already tried several partition and boot tools, but none of them can get the drive working.