Hard Drive has no drive letter

[Guest]

I have an old FAT32 drive from an old computer whose data I would like to
transfer to a new computer. I have installed the drive, and it shows up in
BIOS, and in the hardware manager. It even recognizes the partition, but does
not assign a drive letter. The computer management program sees the drive,
and recognizes the partition as "healthy (active)" but doesn't allow me to
use any of the utilities (such as changing drive letter or seeing the
properties). All I can do is delete the partition, which is NOT what I want
to do. Any suggestions?

 

[Ghostrider]

I have an old FAT32 drive from an old computer whose data I would like to
transfer to a new computer. I have installed the drive, and it shows up in
BIOS, and in the hardware manager. It even recognizes the partition, but does
not assign a drive letter. The computer management program sees the drive,
and recognizes the partition as "healthy (active)" but doesn't allow me to
use any of the utilities (such as changing drive letter or seeing the
properties). All I can do is delete the partition, which is NOT what I want
to do. Any suggestions?

If all else fails, put the old FAT32 hard drive into an external
USB hard drive enclosure. The computer might recognize it through
the box's electronics.

 

[Anna]

I have an old FAT32 drive from an old computer whose data I would like to
transfer to a new computer. I have installed the drive, and it shows up in
BIOS, and in the hardware manager. It even recognizes the partition, but
does
not assign a drive letter. The computer management program sees the drive,
and recognizes the partition as "healthy (active)" but doesn't allow me to
use any of the utilities (such as changing drive letter or seeing the
properties). All I can do is delete the partition, which is NOT what I
want
to do. Any suggestions?

eedoc:
We'll assume the problem drive is non-defective.
We'll assume the problem drive's data cable is non-defective and properly
secured at both the drive's connector and your motherboard's IDE connector
and that the drive is correctly jumpered.

If the above assumptions are correct, try this...
1. After powering down, disconnect the problem drive and boot only with your
working HD connected.
2. Power down and reconnect the problem drive. Ensure that it's jumpered
correctly and securely connected.
3. Power up and check out Disk Management again to see if a drive letter has
been assigned or that you can now assign a drive letter.
4, If not, power down and connect the problem drive to another one of the
motherboard's IDE connectors. Try it as Primary Slave or each of the two
Secondary IDE channels.
Anna

 

[Ron Martell]

I have an old FAT32 drive from an old computer whose data I would like to
transfer to a new computer. I have installed the drive, and it shows up in
BIOS, and in the hardware manager. It even recognizes the partition, but does
not assign a drive letter. The computer management program sees the drive,
and recognizes the partition as "healthy (active)" but doesn't allow me to
use any of the utilities (such as changing drive letter or seeing the
properties). All I can do is delete the partition, which is NOT what I want
to do. Any suggestions?

How is the hard drive installed in your computer? Are the new and old
drives connected as Master and Slave on the same IDE channel? This
can sometimes be problematic, especially if the two drives are from
different manufacturers.

Try reconfiguring your drive connections so that the old FAT32 drive
is the Master drive on the Secondary IDE channel and see if that makes
any difference.

Good luck

Ron Martell Duncan B.C. Canada
--
Microsoft MVP (1997 - 2006)
On-Line Help Computer Service
http://onlinehelp.bc.ca

"Anyone who thinks that they are too small to make a difference
has never been in bed with a mosquito."

 

[Glen]

If the bios sees the drive as you seem to say, all other drives letters
might be disabled. Download TweakUI and that will allow you to enable the
drive and assign a letter.

TweakUI
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsxp/downloads/powertoys/xppowertoys.mspx

Glen P