need help,

[kuba]

I got my computer setup as is, everything is running fine.
Primary 40 Gig
Secondary 200 Gig
my buddy wants me to save some files from his old piece of crap compaq (win98)
i thought it would be as easy as unplugging the dvd-rom ide cable and plugging it into the hard-drive and since it's not set as a boot up device, the computer would just recognize it, as a spare hard-drive, but it's not.
help.

 

[mechBgon]

I assume you're on WinXP or Win2000 yourself. Right-click My Computer and go to Manage > Disk Management. See if the drive's listed. If so, right-click its icon and you should see your way from there.

 

[kuba]

I'm on XP'ro. I would do that if i could, i can't get past the BASIC text screen on boot-up. lol
I'm getting a "system disk failure" text message on screen.

 

[mechBgon]

If I understand correctly, your system went "oh cool, a new hard drive!" and is now trying to boot from it, rather than from your WinXP drive. Change your hard-disk boot priority in your motherboard's BIOS menus.

If you happen to have a recent Asus motherboard, then hit the F8 key during the POST screen and it'll probably bring up a boot-device selection menu after POST. Choose your WinXP drive and off you go

 

[kuba]

Oh, I already did that, this mobo-BIOS, is not user friendly at all, A7V8X-X...I have the A7N8X-X and much more user friendly.

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I managed to get in through WinXP, but the drive is not listed anywhere.

 

[Trey22]

Maybe check/change the jumper settings on this 3rd hard drive?