NTFS and FAT32 drives

  • Thread starter Thread starter John Johnson
  • Start date Start date
J

John Johnson

Xp Pro SP2
NTFS file system.
MSI 865 MB.

I tried to put in a couple older drives to check on whats in them.
They are FAT32 drives.
My computer hung from the get go on them. Booting up took for ever
and it didn't recognize them at all.

I seem to remember on XP being able to read and copy to FAT 32
drives.
 
John Johnson said:
Xp Pro SP2
NTFS file system.
MSI 865 MB.

I tried to put in a couple older drives to check on whats in them.
They are FAT32 drives.
My computer hung from the get go on them. Booting up took for ever
and it didn't recognize them at all.

I seem to remember on XP being able to read and copy to FAT 32
drives.
Click to expand...

This is correct.
 
Hi,

Yes, XP can read NTFS and FAT 32 formatted drives.
Make sure the slave drive is jumpered slave / cable select and connected
correctly with the 80 wired 40 Pin shielded IDE cable.
You may need to go to disk management and initialize drive/assign drive
letter so that you can see the drive contents.

Peter
 
How did you set the jumpers?

How old are the drives? What make, model and capacity? Do
the drives show in the device manager or disk management?


--
The people think the Constitution protects their rights;
But government sees it as an obstacle to be overcome.


| Xp Pro SP2
| NTFS file system.
| MSI 865 MB.
|
| I tried to put in a couple older drives to check on whats
in them.
| They are FAT32 drives.
| My computer hung from the get go on them. Booting up took
for ever
| and it didn't recognize them at all.
|
| I seem to remember on XP being able to read and copy to
FAT 32
| drives.
 
John said:
Xp Pro SP2
NTFS file system.
MSI 865 MB.

I tried to put in a couple older drives to check on whats in them.
They are FAT32 drives.
My computer hung from the get go on them. Booting up took for ever
and it didn't recognize them at all.

I seem to remember on XP being able to read and copy to FAT 32
drives.
Click to expand...

This XP PC has one HD with a FAT16 part, a FAT32 part, and 3 NTFS parts.
And, neither XP nor normal apps can tell the difference; only low-level
disk utilities can tell.
 
Hi,

Yes, XP can read NTFS and FAT 32 formatted drives.
Make sure the slave drive is jumpered slave / cable select and connected
correctly with the 80 wired 40 Pin shielded IDE cable.
You may need to go to disk management and initialize drive/assign drive
letter so that you can see the drive contents.
Click to expand...

I did set the jumpers and used both an external firewire tray and an
internal ATA tray.

Even the bios did not recognized the drives correctly. It had strange
numbers or spaces or symbols in place of a number and even spelled
Samsung wrong.

Some of the drives are older and might just be to old but a couple are
not that old and were working the last time I check a few years ago.
These are just data drives, just want to see whats on them.
 
John Johnson said:
Xp Pro SP2
NTFS file system.
MSI 865 MB.

I tried to put in a couple older drives to check on whats in them.
They are FAT32 drives.
My computer hung from the get go on them. Booting up took for ever
and it didn't recognize them at all.

I seem to remember on XP being able to read and copy to FAT 32
drives.
Click to expand...

Sometimes there are problems when using drives of different ages on
the same IDE channel, especially if the two drives are from different
manufacturers.

I would be reluctant, for example, to configure a computer with a new
Western Digital drive as primary master and a 5 or 6 year old Maxtor,
Seagate, or Quantum drive as primary slave. Sometimes these mixed
generation & brand configurations work, but they have problems often
enough to make me wary.

Connect your old drives one at a time to the Secondary IDE channel as
the master drive and disconnect everything else that is connected to
that channel. Then see if your computer will boot up and detect the
drive for your. If not then the drive is probably defective.

Good luck


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

"The reason computer chips are so small is computers don't eat much."
 
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