Quantum Fireball Lct HDD problem

S

sweetness

n00b
Joined
Feb 19, 2004
Messages
4
Hey Guys,

Recently came across a system that I'm trying to 'upgrade' for a friend, and I'm trying to salvage the aforementioned harddrive with his files on it.
Now, I've tried every possible combination of jumper settings, on multiple systems throughout my house, on Windows 2000, 98, and XP, and for the life of me I can't get it to work in Windows.
It recognizes the hard drive in BIOS and on Boot, but it won't let me access it from DOS or Windows. I can find it in Windows under the device manager, but it does not have a drive designation. I even tried multiple IDE cables and still no change. I've invested so much time I'm about to break him the news that his files along with his HD are in my trash.

later
 
Are you sure that the file system on the hd is FAT16/32 or NTFS? It might be one that windows cannot read.
I mean that the HD might not have been used under a MS Windows OS.
 
In 2000 or XP, go under Administrative Tools, and then computer management. Go down to Disk management, and see if it shows up there. Sounds to me like it just doesn't have a drive letter assigned.
 
VA,

Went in there, and it does show up, it's FAT32, it says Healthy(Active) with a basic partition. But, the only thing it will let me do is delete the partition, all the other options are faded(including the change drive letter). I just need to get his files off of it and then I can delete the partition, but will that solve the problems of it showing up in Windows in the future?

Thanks for any help.
 
Have you tried "Add/Remove Hardware?" :rolleyes:

If the original PC is still around thats being upgraded, plug the drive back in there, throw a NIC in it (You DO have an extra network card around, don't you?) and zap the files over LAN.

Or you could try WinPE!

http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/

See if you can maybe get a bootable install of Windows that'll pick up that disk...

Perhaps see if you could use WinImage to take an image file of that old drive (if it sees it at all) and then drag the files out of the image... If the drive spins and works, the data isn't unrecoverable.

Though I've never run into the problem you describe before, actually... As many times as I've done that sort of thing. Odd.
 
Acorn,

The old system is long gone, just told him to bring the HD and I would do the rest. Like you, I've done this a thousand times before and I've never encountered something like this.
The system picks it up no problem, I don't need to Add new hardware, it's there.
I can't understand how BIOS and Windows will recognize it, just will not give it a drive designation to allow me to get in and get his files.
WinImage will not pick it up, the only thing the Disk Manager will allow me to do is to convert it to a Dynamic Disk, and I'm assuming it will erase the contents which is pointless.

later
 
Vertigo Acid,

After trying everything else, I went back into the Administrative tools and decided to do the only thing available and convert it to a Dynamic Disk, thinking it would delete the partition and everything on it. I don't know if it was by pure luck, but it did it, and sure enough I was then able to designate it a drive letter, and bam, got all his files!
Thanks so much for pointing me in the right direction, albeit a few hours wasted, but how else are we going to learn, right!

later,

sweetness
 
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