I removed the master hard drive with Windows XPfrom a machine that worked when I stripped it. I didn't realize until later that I had data on the drive (family photos, resume, etc) and the old machine is gone. I want to get the data off of it but am not sure how to do it. I tried setting the jumper to slave but in My Computer on the new computer it didn't show it listed. In the device manager it showed the drive working but I can't access it.

Can someone help me out here?

Edited July 15, 200620 yr by Martin L

what happens when you try to access it in Disk Management? If it's seen in the device manager it will probably ask you in the disk manager to import a foriegn disk. click yes and let it import it then it should assign it a drive letter.

If you set your folders to private or change permissions on folders you will need to take ownership of the folders. You'll discover this when you get access denied messages.

It does show in disc management, but it didn't ask me to import. What next?

does it have a drive letter assigned? probably not.

what does it say the drive status/file system/type etc. is in the disk manager?

Does it say it's online or offline?

Need more details.

Says it is online, no drive letter, type is basic. Partition style is: MBR

is there more than one partition? and how are they formattedd fat32 or ntfs

It doesn't show any partitions. Just 40GB. It also doesn't show the format type

that's not a good sign. I'm assuming you didn't delete the partitions before taking the drive out.

When it was installed in the old machine did it have a drive overlay manager installed so you could see the entire 40gb in the other machine because it was not entirely seen by the bios. Or did it have goback installed?

I didn't delete anything, just took it out. It did show the whole 40G in the old machine though. Don't know anything about goback. Come to think of it, this was a secondary drive, not the primary. Sorry for the confusion.

No confusion just trying to get all the details before having you try anything. Don't want to have your data permantently gone. so the more info we have the less likely we'll lose it.

It's alot easier doing this in person than over the net too.

Other than trying one of the many data recovery apps out there, I'm running out of ideas.

>Says it is online, no drive letter, type is basic. Partition style is: MBR

Hi sqzdog

i had the same problem, what i did is assign a drive letter to the drive and i'm able to access it.

hope this help.

It won't let me assign a drive letter through disk management

Edited July 14, 200620 yr by sqzdog

is the new hdd partition marked as "hidden"??

Had to load Partion Magic and unhide it.

That fixed it for me

so which fixed it for you niceguy the first or the second?

I installed partition magic. This drive has no partitions, but it shows most of the space being used. Partition magic also will not let me assign a drive letter. How can I access this data?