XP on C: drive, Win 98 on F: drive

[Guest]

I installed Windows XP on a clean, spare ahrd drive. I have Windows 98
installed on what is now the F: drive. I want to migrate all the programs in
files from the F; drive into Windows XP on the C: drive, but windows XP is
reporting the F: drive as empty.
When I pull out the XP drive, and boot to the Win 98 drive, it works
properly, and I know the drive is not empty.
Another pecularity is that XP Dixk Management reports the F: drive as having
a capacity of 74 GB, but I know it is only a 32 GB drive.
Without getting over complicated, does anyone have any suggestions as to how
I go about seeing the contencts of the F: drive while in Windows xp?

 

[Shenan Stanley]

I installed Windows XP on a clean, spare ahrd drive. I have Windows 98
installed on what is now the F: drive. I want to migrate all the
programs in files from the F; drive into Windows XP on the C: drive,
but windows XP is reporting the F: drive as empty.
When I pull out the XP drive, and boot to the Win 98 drive, it works
properly, and I know the drive is not empty.
Another pecularity is that XP Dixk Management reports the F: drive as
having a capacity of 74 GB, but I know it is only a 32 GB drive.
Without getting over complicated, does anyone have any suggestions as
to how I go about seeing the contencts of the F: drive while in
Windows xp?

You won't be able to "migrate the programs" - those will require a reinstall
in 90% of cases. Most programs require more than just the directory they
were installed in to run.. Files in the system directories, entries in the
system registry, etc.

Secondly.. You seem to be putting the drives in separately.. Have you
correctly set the hardware jumpers on the old drive in order to make it a
slave? It sounds like you may not have done this if you are able to just
"pull out the XP drive and boot immediately to Windows 98.." Make sure you
have the Windows XP drive set as master and the 98 as slave if on the same
cable. Boot into Windows XP and see what you now see.

What does your system BIOS say the size of the drive is?

 

[Guest]

I have the jumpers set so the Win XP drive is the master and the Win 98 drive
is the slave.
I know I will have to install most of the programs into XP, but a lot were
downloaded programs, and the install files are on the Win 98 drive. There is
also a boat load of pictures...
The BIOS gives me cryptic information. When using autodetect, each drive
gives me 3 option to chose from, and none give the size of the drive in GB
format.

 

[D.Currie]

I installed Windows XP on a clean, spare ahrd drive. I have Windows 98
installed on what is now the F: drive. I want to migrate all the programs
in
files from the F; drive into Windows XP on the C: drive, but windows XP is
reporting the F: drive as empty.
When I pull out the XP drive, and boot to the Win 98 drive, it works
properly, and I know the drive is not empty.
Another pecularity is that XP Dixk Management reports the F: drive as
having
a capacity of 74 GB, but I know it is only a 32 GB drive.
Without getting over complicated, does anyone have any suggestions as to
how
I go about seeing the contencts of the F: drive while in Windows xp?

It sounds like you may have used some sort of drive overlay on that Win98
drive, and since the overlay doesn't load unless you're booting from the
drive, it gives the wrong information when you boot from another drive. It
might also be caused by using some 3rd party partitioning program that's not
compatible with XP.

As for how to get XP to see the drive...

If you know what overlay program was used, you can remove it, but you also
run the risk of messing up the data in the process if you do it wrong. If
the problem was caused by some partitioning program, chances are you can't
un-do it.

Oddly enough, I've had a few drives that used drive overlay software that I
couldn't read when the drive was in the computer with XP, but I could read
when the drive was attached by USB. I have no idea why it works that way
(sometimes) but it's a handy trick to have up my sleeve when I need it.

Depending on how much you have to copy, you could copy the data to CDs.If
it's really that important to you, you might want it copied to CDs anyway,
as an archive copy.

Or, you could get a spare hard drive that is readable from both OSs, copy
the data there, and transfer it that way.