XP won't mount second HD

  • Thread starter Thread starter Kim Aku
  • Start date Start date
K

Kim Aku

Just taken delivery of brand new Dell Dimension with XP
home edition on NTFS 120GB disk, succesfully fired it up
and downloaded/installed latest XP service & security
packs.

I needed to transfer about 60GB data from my old computer,
so rather than network the two and wait a zillion hours, I
took the Win200 NTFS drive out of old computer and
temporarily installed it in the Dell.

Unfortunately when I turned the Dell on again, because the
CRT monitor took so long to display anything, I missed the
magic moment to enter BIOS setup (which was configured for
no disk on primary slave). However XP popped up a little
dialog saying it had found new hardware, Maxtor 85GB

drive, but presumably because the BIOS didn't know it was
there, it didn't appear in My Computer.

No problem, I thought, I'll just restart & enable the BIOS
to autodetect it and all will be well. Unfortunately all
was not well, because although the BIOS now recognises it
and knows it's a Maxtor 85GB, XP still doesn't know it's
there.

Might this be anything to do with drive letter conflicts
with NTFS partitions? (It was boot drive C: on the old
computer) Or is it because XP, having initally found the
drive but being prevented by the BIOS from using it, is
now having a sulk about mounting it?
 
A couple of clarifications: (1) If the XP saw the disk, then the BIOS must
have seen it, too. The BIOS is far more fundamental than is XP; The BIOS is
tied to the hardware. For example, the same BIOS could be used with LINUX
or Win98. (2) It is possible that there is some confusion about master and
slave disks. The original disk in the new Dell is certainly a master (or
possibly something called cable select). The old disk was probably also a
master in the old PC. When installing the old disk in the new computer you
should change the jumper to slave on the old drive. If the drive itself
does not have clear markings, go the the disk maker support site for more
info. (3) Over the years there have been a couple of version of NTFS. I
honestly do not know if the one for 2000 is the same as the one for XP. You
should try to do a wb search to settle that potential issue. (4) If the
old disk were blank or contained nothing important, you could use the XP
disk management tool to initialize it and format it. For the moment, be
careful about using XP's disk management tool, lest it destroy your data.
(5) An end-run might be to mount the old disk in a USB 2.0 enclosure, then
plug that into XP. I have had good luck reading old disks via XP, when they
were in such enclosures. Note that XP should recognize the enclose and disk
without any additional drivers.
 
Actually this point is not as clear as you might think, XP can detect a hard drive or CD drive even though the channel that said
drive is on is disabled (set to none) in BIOS.
 
did u change the jumper on the hard drive to make it
slave. go into systems and see if the hard drive is listed
there. if it is then go to computer managment and in there
u can manage disk drives.
 
-----Original Message-----
Message unavailable
Click to expand...
XP aoutmatically finds new hardware and updates its
self.When you start your pC it performs a POST/bootsrap
routine which resides in your rom. This takes care of
your BIOS config.When installing a new,or transfeered HD.
remember to scan the disk (myb compuiter;disc
management;click on thr installed HD and coose from the
Action menue (toolbar ) SCann disc now.Hope this fixes it
for you.
 
Back
Top