6-42
User’s Guide
Troubleshooting
6
Initializing a hard disk
You may never need to initialize a hard disk. This section helps you
determine whether you need to initialize your hard disk and tells
you how to do the initialization, if it is necessary.
When do you need to initialize a hard disk?
The hard disk inside your computer was initialized at the factory,
so you should not need to initialize it. You need to initialize a hard
disk only if one of the following conditions is true:
• You purchase a hard disk that has not been initialized at the
factory.
• Your hard disk is damaged.
A hard disk may need to be initialized if the disk’s icon does not
appear on the desktop when you start up the computer using
another disk.
!
Warning
Initializing a disk erases any information that may be on
it. Before you initialize a damaged disk, try to repair it as
described in How to repair a hard disk or floppy disk on
page 6-40.
