external hd reading contents

[Dale Randall]

I have a Dell Dimension L933R and replaced hd with new 120 g. My old
one would not reach the cable to slave it in . Now I have an external
drive (generic) hooked to usb. Comp. would not recognize it. I
discovered that when I added new drive I also added xp pro system. Then
I converted hd format from fat32 to ntfs file system. I still can't
read that hd but the computer recognizes it being anothre drive (F).
How can I get it read from hd.?? Old system was Win ME. Dale

 

[Paul]

I have a Dell Dimension L933R and replaced hd with new 120 g. My old
one would not reach the cable to slave it in . Now I have an external
drive (generic) hooked to usb. Comp. would not recognize it. I
discovered that when I added new drive I also added xp pro system. Then
I converted hd format from fat32 to ntfs file system. I still can't
read that hd but the computer recognizes it being anothre drive (F).
How can I get it read from hd.?? Old system was Win ME. Dale

I don't think older systems can read NTFS. Fat32 would be
a more useful format for interchange. Ya gotta be careful
when the evil Windows tempts you with the offer to change
to NTFS.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ntfs
( and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fat32 )

If you are clever, two computers, an Ethernet cable,
an old OS, a new OS, setting up a share, should allow
files to be moved from one to the other. As I'm not that
clever, I'd probably get stuck trying to get the
share to work.

I'm not really a file system guy, and maybe someone will
take pity on you and offer a better recipe.

Paul

 

[Ken Maltby]

Was it a USB 2 external interface for that external drive case?
Most of the USB1 interfaces will not do NTFS.