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I woke up today to find out that my 8tb HDD cannot be accessed. I restarted Win10 hoping it would fix this but now it won't show up. I am looking at it in disk management, it shows up as not initialized. I'm not sure what to do here.

It was not encrypted, it was NTFS formatted to a single partition. How do I maximize my chances of recovery using free software (hopefully)?

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    You might want to take a byte-for-byte, low-level backup of the drive before doing anything else. With a bootable linux USB device, you can use the dd command to make the backup.
    – David Schwartz
    Commented Nov 20, 2017 at 10:23
  • To append to @DavidSchwartz comment: this is a sign of failure indeed and a byte-for-byte backup may help you recover data. Also, consider buying a new drive to replace this one.
    – LPChip
    Commented Nov 20, 2017 at 10:25
  • I wish I didn't have to buy an other 8tb drive just to recover. I have most files backed up. Does this linux method allow me to pick the files I need?
    – Bricktop
    Commented Nov 20, 2017 at 12:03
  • Either Testdisk or RecuperaBit: superuser.com/a/1144489/278831 (disclaimer: I am the author of the latter)
    – Andrea Lazzarotto
    Commented Nov 22, 2017 at 11:11

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Edit: Frist check the Power/Data Cable or test your drive on another PC to make sure the problem is about the Disk itself!

Sometimes it is just a Corrupted MBR and you can fix your disk without formatting by rebuilding MasterBootRecord with some helps that provided here & here.

Even if you want to do the rescue by yourself using free softwares, it would be a time consuming process. As @DavidSchwartz said, you need to take a backup first. There are some free/ bootable softwares like these.

Obviously you will need an external drive to save the Backup files and check if they are well gathered. And if not you need to change your software. If your HDD could not be accessed by those softwares and you just need a low-level backup you can use this.

If your case is a Corrupt HDD, may this software helps, although you have to pay for a bootable version or you could use the freeware if you connect your damaged HDD to another running PC. (If know what you are doing.)

After a suitable backup (or even if that fails) you even have a chance to recover your files after reformatting the drive. As many sofwares provide LOST Files/Partitions recovery.

Keep in mind that some HDD Brands offers Rescue Service like seagate.

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  • I was wondering why no tool helped with this. Turns out the power cable had become a little loose. Works great now. Thanks anyway!
    – Bricktop
    Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 11:05
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    @bricktop : Bah! Forgot to mention the simplest solution!
    – Omid PD
    Commented Nov 21, 2017 at 12:55

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