adding old drive to different pc

[doginapot]

I'm trying to back up files from my g/f's pc, and I chose to just take the HD out of her pc and add it to mine as a secondary drive to sort out the files. However I can't access the drive at all. I went to administrative tools to try and figure this out but I can't find any usefull option there. I've done this before with other pc's and had no problem, but the only option I have on this drive is to format it, and that's the opposite of what I want to do.

I'm running XP pro using an ntfs drive. I don't know what her format was but I should be able to read it regardless.

[ctal]

Is this an ide drive? If so, did you remember to position the master/slave/cable select jumper appropriately?

Does the bios see the drive? Are there any relevant bios settings that should be adjusted to correspond to the drive size or type?

Does device manager see the drive?

Are you saying that administrative tools/disk management sees the drive, but won't give you any options other than formatting? If so, does it indicate the correct overall size for the drive? Does it indicate that there are any existing partitions?

Regards,

-- Al

[doginapot]

I tried both as slave and primary position, the bios sees the drive, windows sees the drive, everything sees the drive. Just not anything on it. The size is also reported incorrectly. I'm confused.

I'm putting it back in the old pc now to try and move the files over the network, but if that doesn't want to happen I'll be living with an unhappy lady.

[ctal]

The fact that the size is reported incorrectly is significant. What size and vintage (approximate year) are her drive and your computer? What size is the primary hard drive in your computer? Based on your answers, should/can large block addressing be enabled in the bios for her drive, and is it?
-- Al

[doginapot]

Things have changed, when I put it back in her pc, the drive wasn't found there. So I put it back in my pc, and now I don't see it "my computer", but in disk management it comes up as "unallocated". Oh and the volume is being reported correctly now...

This stuff only happens to me.

[bjbgraphics]

Originally Posted by doginapot

This stuff only happens to me.

Haha. Sorry to laugh, but, oh man, we've all been there, dude. You aren't alone in feeling that way, not in this forum for sure. I constantly tell people that even with all my years of experience working on computers and the blood, sweat, and tears put into them that I still can't trust any of them to not stab me in the back and do something completely baffling at any moment.

As for your problem... is the drive you took out of your g/f's PC also a Windows XP boot drive?

P.S. - Sorry you're living with an unhappy lady.

BJB

[doginapot]

Yeah, it's the boot drive. I feel like blaming this on gremlins because it was working just fine this afternoon in her PC where it had been working just fine for four years. I took it out and now it won't work in my PC or her PC. I can't access it on mine, and her PC gives me the "press F1 to retry boot" message. Doesn't even say disk not found.

[PGIV]

Did you reset the jumper on the HD before you put it back in your GF's PC?

[doginapot]

Yep, jumpers have been in the correct position for their respective circumstances. I'm sorry guys, I feel like all I'm bringing to the table is "it's broken for no reason", because that's what it seems like to me.

[rjs735]

Is your pc using ntfs? If not then fat32 cannot read ntfs files and may show up as unallocated.

Just because you are on xp pro doesn't necesarily mean you are using ntfs although the default usually is ntfs. What you maybe running into is the security built into ntfs file system to prevent theft of data by removing the hd and putting it in another system.

"fi try boot" usually is because the boot record is gone. It would be interesting to know how old the g/f's system was and whether they had a disk management software overlay.

It would be also nice to know if the system it came from used a hidden partition or a partition for recovery that was other than a windows allocation.

At this point your are needing a disk tool to read the ntfs directory to maybe figure out what has been corrupted or even the possibility of recovery.

You might also try MS support for ntfs file recovery.

An easier process to do what you tried to do is to use a USB pc to pc network cable to do file sharing and do the sorting . If you have lan then just hook the pc to the lan and do file sharing. Too late for that now.

[doginapot]

Hmmm you know what? It was a dell, so it may have had a hidden partition. What does that mean now?

I understand the master boot record is a likely culprit, but would it prevent me from seeing files when it's hooked up to either PC?

Also, hindsight being 20/20, I should've tried this differently at first.

[rjs735]

It might be good idea to research the make and model on the Dell site to see what recovery they would have used 4 years ago.

I am not too sure about a ntfs file system. I know in a fat32 fs the boot record doesn't prevent you seeing the files.

In NTFS the NTloader is involved. SO I don't know.

The only option I can think of is to reinstall xp on the Dell system this should not effect the user data.

The only other thought that crept in is what if the drive was partitioned. When you attach a drive as a second physical drive when you may already have partitioned hd the order of the drives is changes. Even if your system doesn't have any partitioning the order of drives are changed. C is the 1st physical drive the 2nd physical is D and if there are partitons then they go in seq. But if you have a partitioned drive then 1st physical is still C the the second physical drive ist partition is D and then E is the next logical partition on the 1st physical drive.

There have been others that have not been able to see file when the drive is physically moved due to xp ownership and locking of files from the original system.

[doginapot]

Thanks for all the input guys. I've kind of hit a wall on this, but I appreciate all the help.