Re: Accessing USB External Hard Drive

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C. Mitchell
"C. M." <shadowlord1972@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:%23C91T0ISGHA.4616@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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


"C. M." <shadowlord1972@xxxxxxxxx> wrote in message
news:OWvBjgFaGHA.3740@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
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


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