Accessing USB External Hard Drive

[C. M.]

Greetings,

I have recently migrated to a new PC with Windows XP (Home Edition, SP2, Build 2600) from a defunct and non-working Windows 2000 system. I have several hard drives from the old system that I am trying to transfer files onto my new PC by using them as USB drives. The problem is that my new PC's Windows XP does not seem to like some of the drives. Particularily, it will not allow my to mount any of the FAT32 drives, and some of the NTFS drives. I have checked the Device Manager, and the drivers are all fine and working, I have also checked the drive's jumper settings, and they are all set correctly. The Disk Management MMC extension even detects the drive, detects that it's a FAT32 partition, detects it's size, and even that it's "healthy".. except that it calls it an "unknown partition" and will not let me mount it/assign a drive letter. I am at a loss about what to do. Any suggestions?

 

[C. M.]

Still haven't found a solution or any advice on this issue.. Anyone?

 

[Trooper]

Try removing the Overlay Created by some installation software to
activtae larger drives on older systems.
XP connot read drives setup with this properly.

Place the HD in your old system, use the installation software for that
drive to remove the HD Overlay, and do nothing else.
Move that HD to your USB Device and see the change.

NTFS on a USB device will cause you hairloss. Better to Slave the drive
and remove what you need.

 

[Anna]

--
C. Mitchell
Greetings,

I have recently migrated to a new PC with Windows XP (Home Edition, SP2,
Build 2600) from a defunct and non-working Windows 2000 system. I have
several hard drives from the old system that I am trying to transfer files
onto my new PC by using them as USB drives. The problem is that my new PC's
Windows XP does not seem to like some of the drives. Particularily, it will
not allow my to mount any of the FAT32 drives, and some of the NTFS drives.
I have checked the Device Manager, and the drivers are all fine and working,
I have also checked the drive's jumper settings, and they are all set
correctly. The Disk Management MMC extension even detects the drive, detects
that it's a FAT32 partition, detects it's size, and even that it's
"healthy".. except that it calls it an "unknown partition" and will not let
me mount it/assign a drive letter. I am at a loss about what to do. Any
suggestions?
C. Mitchell


Still haven't found a solution or any advice on this issue.. Anyone?


C. Mitchell:
Is it possible that the drives in question were created as dynamic disks in
your Windows 2000 OS? If so, that would account for the problem you're
having. Windows XP Home Ed. does not support dynamic disks.

If that *is* the problem, there's no simple conversion process that I'm
aware of that will return the dynamic disk to a basic disk so that the
contents of the disk would be able to be accessed by your present OS. The
usual converson process - see
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;309044&sd=tech -
will result in the deletion of all data on the disk.

There have been some hacks published that supposedly can convert a dynamic
disk to a basic disk without the loss of data - see
http://thelazyadmin.com/index.php?/archives/161-Converting-Dynamic-Disks-Back-to-Basic-Disks.html
for one of these.

But, in general, the accepted workaround is to reinstall the disks in
whatever OS supports dynamic disks and retrieve whatever data you can
through copying/moving the data to other media. I note you mention a
"non-working" Windows 2000 OS so that could be a problem.

See also http://www.theeldergeek.com/hard_drives_10.htm for additional info
concerning dynamic disks.
Anna

 

[C. M.]

There is no overlay.. That's actually a major reason I got a new mobo and
went to WinXP, I didn't want to have to use an overlay and rebuild my
Win2000 install with an overlay for my new 200GB drive. Unfortunately, I
cannot slave the IDE drives directly into this mobo, it's a SATA mobo.

Thank you for trying, though!

 

[C. M.]

I'm not sure if I originally set them dynamic.. It's quite possible,
although unlikely. Does XP Pro support dynamic disks (and can it convert
them, since I can load them into my roomie's XP Pro system long enough to
convert, but he runs a business, so won't let me take his server down for
too long..)?

I DO have the room to install/dualboot Win2K on here, but I'm not sure if it
can handle the 200GB hard disk, or the fact it's a SATA drive.. My Win2K CD
is SP2. Any gotcha's I should be aware of if I try this route?

Thank you.

 

[Anna]

I'm not sure if I originally set them dynamic.. It's quite possible,
although unlikely. Does XP Pro support dynamic disks (and can it convert
them, since I can load them into my roomie's XP Pro system long enough to
convert, but he runs a business, so won't let me take his server down for
too long..)?

I DO have the room to install/dualboot Win2K on here, but I'm not sure if
it can handle the 200GB hard disk, or the fact it's a SATA drive.. My
Win2K CD is SP2. Any gotcha's I should be aware of if I try this route?

Thank you.

The fact that the HD is a SATA shouldn't be relevant since you indicate
you're using that drive as a USB external HD.

Assuming this is a dynamic/basic drive issue, please read those articles I
referred you to. They contain a wealth of information on this issue and
should answer in detail any questions that you may have.
Anna