Summary:In this blog, you will learn how to fix Disk Unknown Not Initialized error in Windows 10. The cause of this error may be corrupt MBR, outdated device driver, missing partition, bad sectors, etc. You can try the best methods to fix this error. We have also articulated an efficient way to recover data using a powerful data recovery software in case of data loss due to this error.
For whatever reason, Windows 10 didn’t install drivers for the device. This may be a simple error where it was unable to find drivers or it wasn’t able to correctly identify a device. Regardless, to fix the problem, open Device Manager and right-click the unknown device. To find drivers for unknown devices in Windows, we need to access device manager where you can manage all your hardware device drivers. To open device manager in Windows 8, press “Win + X” to open the power user menu and then select the option “Device Manager.” If you are using Windows 7 or Vista, you can search for the device manager.
- Download Unknown other device drivers or install DriverPack Solution software for driver scan and update. MotioninJoy Virtual Xinput device for Windows.
- I upgraded to windows 10 and even after installing all the drivers I have an unknown device in my device manager. I am not sure how to dig around windows and find out what it might be, any suggestions? -Rampage V Extreme.
When you connect an external drive to the system to copy some files from it to your system, or to create a backup of the system data, sometimes you get a ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ error (See Image 1). This error on your disk makes the drive unreadable, due to which, you are unable to access your data stored on it. However, you may take help of a data recovery tool to get back your data. And to fix the error, try attempting the methods given in this blog post.
Why ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ Error Occurs?
There could be several reasons due to which ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ error message may occur, which are mentioned as following:
- Corrupt/ Incompatible/Outdated Driver
- MBR Corruption
- Missing or lost partition
- Bad Sectors
- Corrupt File System
Best Ways to Fix Disk Unknown Not Initialized in Windows 10
Method 1: Update Device Driver
As explained above, an outdated, corrupt or incompatible device driver may be the cause for this error. You may fix it by updating the latest driver or uninstalling the problematic one, and then reinstalling the compatible driver for the device. Follow these steps to update the device driver:
a. Press Windows + X, locate and open Device Manager. (See Image 1)
b. Select the category of the devices and double-click on the one you want to update driver for.
c. Right-click on the driver. If you see the Update driver option, select it.
d. Choose ‘Search automatically for updated driver software’ and Windows will find the latest one. (See Image 2)
e. If you see Properties option on right-clicking the driver, click Driver tab on the open window.
f. On the next prompt, click Update Driver. (See Image 3)
g. Proceed by clicking ‘ Search automatically for updated driver software’.
When Windows will find you a latest driver for the device, update it. If you couldn’t see any latest driver software available for the device, you may uninstall the corrupt one and re-install the compatible driver to fix the error.
Method 2: Rebuild MBR Boot
If the error occurs due to the MBR corruption, you may fix MBR (Master Boot Record) with the help of the following steps:
a. Open Command Prompt and type the following commands:
- bootrec /fixmbr
- bootrec /fixboot (See Image 4)
b. Once done with the process, close the Command Prompt.
c. Check if the error still persists.
Method 3: Initialize Disk
Try fixing ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ error in Windows 10 by initializing disk with the help of the following troubleshooting steps:
a. Open Disk Management and locate the drive, which is not initialized. The drive will show as unallocated. (see Image 5)
b. Select the unallocated disk, right-click on it and click Initialize Disk. (See Image 6)
c. Select between an MBR and GPT. It is recommended to select GPT and click OK to proceed. (See Image 7)
d. Once this process is done, you will be back to the main window. The drive will be listed as Online and Basic.
e. Go to This PC and check if you can access the drive.
Method 4: Assign a Drive Letter
If you see your drive in Disk Management as UNALLOCATED, you may assign a drive letter and a file system to the drive to fix it. To do so, follow the steps given below:
a. Go to Disk Management and find Unallocated drive.
b. Select the disk drive, right-click on it and select New Simple Volume. (See Image 8)
c. Click Next and then click Next on the next prompt to specify the volume size. (See Image 9)
d. Click ‘Assign the following drive letter’, choose a letter from drop-down list, and click Next. (See Image10)
e. Choose ‘Format this volume with the following settings’. Provide the drive a NTFS file system and click Next to proceed. (See Image 11)
f. Select Finish to complete the procedure and close the window. Once done, check if the error is fixed.
Method 5: Run CHKDSK Command
This error may occur due to bad sectors on disk drive. To fix the corrupt drive or drive with bad sectors, you may run CHKDSK command utility. Follow the given steps:
a. Go to Start by pressing Windows + X, find and open Command Prompt (Admin) (See Image 12)
Driver Unknown Device Usb Windows 10
b. Type chkdsk /f /r d: in the Command Prompt, and hit Enter. (See Image 13)
This command line utility fixes if there is any corruption with the disk. However, it also finds and marks down the bad sectors on the disk. This utility helps Windows understand not to store or read data stored on the bad sectors. Doing so, will make you lose any data stored on those sectors.
Hence, if you run this command to fix ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized” error and lost data due to this, use a powerful data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery Software. This Do-it-yourself tool can recover data from a formatted, or corrupted Windows PCs and external storage devices like HDDs, USB, SD, and SSDs, etc.
Method 6: Run Diskpart Utility
You may also try to fix ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ by using Diskpart utility. This utility helps to quickly format the drive partition or change the disk partition to NTFS or FAT32.
NOTE: This method requires you to format the partition that leads you to data loss situation. Therefore, before proceeding further, either create a backup of your data or keep a data recovery tool handy to restore the data.
Follow the given steps and to fix the error:
a. Open Run window by pressing Windows + R, and type cmd to open Command Prompt.
b. In the command prompt window, type diskpart, then type list disk, and hit Enter.
c. Now, type Select Disk 0 (Where disk 0 is the disk showing error) and hit Enter. (See Image 14)
d. Type clean and hit Enter.
e. Type create partition primary and hit Enter.
f. Type format fs=fat32 quick or fs=ntfs quick and hit Enter to proceed. (See Image 15)
g. Let the process finish, type exit and hit Enter.
h. Reboot the system and check if you are facing the error with the disk.
Recover Lost Data with Data Recovery Software
Due to ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ error, you will not be able to access your drive. Even, in an attempt to fix this error by applying some of the methods mentioned above, you may end up losing data stored on the drive. Regardless of the reason of losing data, you may get it back with the help of a powerful data recovery software such as Stellar Data Recovery. This do-it-yourself (DIY) software can recover lost documents, email files, photos, videos, and more. It supports multiple file formats on different storage devices. The data can even be recovered from formatted and corrupted Windows PCs and external drives.
Conclusion
In this blog, we have discussed what you can do when your system or an external drive encounter ‘Disk Unknown Not Initialized’ error. Performing the aforesaid methods may help you fix the error. However, methods such as diskpart utility or fixing unallocated space require you to format the drive, wiping out the data stored on it. To avoid losing data on the drive, you may use a data recovery tool such as Stellar Data Recovery software. The tool can efficiently extract lost files, folders, documents, photos, and more.
Quite often Windows users facing a problem when the system can’t identify the connected device. In such cases, the Device Manager contents an Unknown device and the next information displayed in its Device Status box: The Drivers for This Device Are Not Installed. (code 28).
Such error is related to Device Manager and it’s important to mention that in most cases Code 28 means that you don’t have the latest device’s drivers installed on your machine and all you need to do is just install them.
Troubleshoot Driver Problems Windows 10
How to Fix The Drivers for This Device Are Not Installed Code 28?
Solution 1. Update Drivers for the Device
This method will be useful in case you know which device causes the issue or you even have its manufacturer’s CD with appropriate drivers to install. All you need to do is to install drivers on your PC.
In case you don’t have such CD – you can download the latest drivers from the manufacturer’s official website.
Follow the instructions:
- Download the latest drivers manually from the manufacturer’s official website. Run setup.exe or other executable files that you’ve downloaded;
- In case there is no executable file in your downloads: run the Device Manager (run Command prompt, then type in and run command msc), find the needed device in the list. Right click on it and choose its Properties. Now switch to Driver tab and press Update Driver button.
- After that – follow the installation wizard’s instructions and install the needed drivers.
Solution 2. Find and Install the Needed Drivers by Using Device’s ID
In case the device is not identified and you don’t know exactly what device causes issues, you might need its ID to try to find the needed drivers. To find out the ID of the device follow the instructions:
- Go to Device Manager, find the Unknown device in the list, right click on it and choose its Properties;
- In Properties switch to Details tab, now switch parameter in the field to Hardware IDs;
- As a result, you will see a few IDs. Almost every ID has some deeper information about the device. Now we are going to search the drivers by using the ID – right click on it and press Copy;
We’ve found the ID of the device, now we need to find the needed drivers. The first thing – we will Google the ID to find the name of the device (or even a link to download the driver). When you got the name of the device – try to download the drivers from the manufacturer’s website or a third-party website (do it at your own risk!).
In case you can’t find them using the official website, try to use, as example, this website.
It has a great search option, you just need to paste the copied ID of the device into the search field and press Search. In case the drivers are in the website’s database—you can download the drivers directly from the website using the appropriate icon.
Solution 3. Try to Install the Needed Drivers in Compatibility Mode
Sometimes older drivers’ versions can be successfully installed by using the Windows compatibility mode. In case you have the drivers’ installation file (for example, on manufacturer’s CD) which causes errors – try to use the next method.
- Open the folder where the drivers’ installation file is located, right click on it and then choose its Properties;
- Now switch to Compatibility tab;
- Check on Run this program in compatibility mode for: and try different OS versions (most often users are successful with Windows Vista).
Solution 4. Use Fix it (Automatic Tool)
This is an automatic tool to fix the Code 28 issue. All you have to do is to download the Fix it utility from the below link and install it in your computer.
- Download Fix it from here;
- Install it on your computer;
- Launch it and you will see the next options:
- Hardware devices are not working or are not detected in Windows;
- Diagnose and fix Windows USB problems automatically;
- Choose any of the options above;
- The rest of the work will be done automatically.
Additional Methods on How to Fix Code 28
In case the error Code 28 didn’t disappear after you tried all of the steps above, you can perform one of these additional methods:
Roll Back the Driver to the Version Prior to Your Update;
- Run the Device Manager;
- Right click on the device which you want to roll back the driver and open its Properties;
- Switch to Drivers tab;
- Click the button Roll Back Driver.
Using System Restore to Undo the Changes
In case you’ve created the Windows restore points earlier – it’s the best time to recover recent Device Manager changes by using it. Error code 28 should disappear after that.
Unknown Device Driver Download For Windows 10
Tip. It’s better to perform a backup of your drivers from time to time because it can help you to restore the correct functioning of the hardware and devices (USB devices, scans, printers etc.) quickly.
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