Problem - Swapping HDD between two computers

[madman300]

I am trying to move a 300GB HDD from computer 1 to computer 2

Computer 1 used this drive as a primary boot drive with Win XP PRO SP2. It has a 60gb and 240gb partition (roughly)

Computer 2 is a single HDD system with windows XP PRO SP2 installed.

However, after installing the drive in computer two the OS simple says that the HDD is not formatted. Now I know this is not true since the drive is about 60% full of lots of important stuff. What should I do now? Just putting the HDD back into computer 1 is not an option.

I seem to remember reading about this problem in the past and I am hopping someone has a simple fix for this error.

Thanks in advance.

Madison

 

[Lasthitlarry]

Make sure it's not trying to boot from the 300GB... and also try fixmbr(mbr = Master Boot Record = The 8 bit part of the drive you can't partition that contains boot information) command with a windows disc or other troubleshooting disc/floppy/usb drive.

Can't think of what else...

 

[madman300]

Thanks for your reply.

The drive is installed as a secondary (slave) drive. It informs me that it is not formatted when I try to read it in windows explorer.

madison

 

[ElFenix]

have you looked in drive manager to see what it says? logical drives require importing, iirc.

 

[madman300]

What do you mean importing? The drive manager only says that 128GB are healthy and the rest is unallocated.

 

[madman300]

If it helps the system is running on an

ABIT NF7-M mobo
the boot drive is 60 GB

madison

 

[Bakwetu]

Are any of the drives Fat-formatted?

 

[madman300]

nope.. all ntfs

You know what is funny... i remember this same thing happening to both my roomates last year on two different computers. I believe there is some inherent XP flaw involved here. Not to mention many many cases found while using google. So far the only solution I have found is to run a data recovery tool, backup and format.

sucks..

 

[Yakomo]

I've had the same issue with 2 drives I transfered to another machine as well. Same message of it not formatted. No option to import either. Have you been able to extract any data from the old drive with any alternative methods?

 

[madman300]

i have been able to get some data using the software "get data back" but the coverage is spottty. Luckily I dont have any data on here that I just really really really need, however, it will be a pain to get it back.


madison

 

[Auric]

The fact that what it does recognize does not correspond to the actual partitions is queer.

Can you back it up before fiddling with it?

Run chkdsk on it?

 

[PurdueRy]

you using SP2?

 

[Bozo Galora]

every day - same nonsense

people moving drives around, adding drives from other computers, adding already partitioned O/S drives, mixed SATA and IDE HDD addins, leaving partition tables on newly designated boot HDD that dont represent new configs, adding HDD with primary active O/S partitions that automatically screw up drive letters and their associations when plugged in, adding non utilized O/S loaded bootable drives with jumpers still set as master, adding 48 bit addressing necessary drives (300GB) to 80GB drives with another O/S install that didnt need 48 bit activation, multiple boot.ini's, ntldrs, boot.ini's that are iincompatible with new drives install etc. etc.

Then theres the usual mushy first post that gives little info, just a generic problem, necessitating question after question.......
Are they SATA or IDE, what Chipset, MS or nvidia SATA/IDE installed drivers, what brands drives, what file system, primary/secondary master/slave positions - jumpers, SATA port numbers used, boot sequences, which booting enablers set in bios, etc.
Posters always automatically assume everyone can read their mind and knows their entire exact situation.

Bleh

 

[madman300]

yes both system are running sp2

 

[madman300]

Bozo,

I am not really sure what you are getting at.. and there seems to be nothing useful in your post. If you would like to start a rant please do it in your own thread.

bleh

 

[Ricochet]

Sorry, I don't have a solution to your problem. I seem to have a somewhat similar problem, though.

When I sold my desktop computer and got a laptop, I took one of the hard drive and put it in an external USB enclosure. When I hooked it to my laptop, windows recognized and assigned a drive letter but anytime I want to access it, it tells me that it's not formatted. I have a whole bunch of stuff on that 120 gig drive.

To prove it's not the enclosure fault, I put a friend's hard drive in the enclosure and it worked fine. Both his and mine are NTFS.

 

[Bozo Galora]

Originally posted by: madman300
Bozo,

I am not really sure what you are getting at.. and there seems to be nothing useful in your post. If you would like to start a rant please do it in your own thread.

bleh

I dont make my own threads - I dont ask any HW questions here - I only answer
I like ranting in your thread because it is typical behavior that causes endless posts in GH..
And I will post in any thread I wish, whether you think its useful or not.
The fact you saw nothing helpful in my post confirms you do not have basic knowledge of you are doing, and its consequences.

Like Clint Eastwood said: "A mans gotta know his limitations"

 

[madman300]

you are correct...


i do not have the "basic knowledge of you are doing"... in fact, I dont even know what that means....

 

[Skeeedunt]

Originally posted by: madman300
What do you mean importing? The drive manager only says that 128GB are healthy and the rest is unallocated.

128GB sounds like a BIOS limitation, but that board isn't that old. Might want to consider flashing the BIOS to the latest version and see if it helps. Doubt it though.

 

[madman300]

Skeeedunt,

Thanks for the suggestion, but I did that a while back. hmm....

 

[i3igpete]

looks like bozo works for the geek squad

 

[imported_goku]

So you formatted the drive and then installed it into another system? Maybe windows need to initialize the drive. What you should do is go into control panel, then administrative tools go under computer management, then disk management and see if windows detects it. It's possible that the drive was improperly formatted and thats why it's saying that.