How to detect a HDD containing Windows Me/2000?

[Guest]

In short, I have an extra drive with Windows Me/2000 installed on it and Windows XP isn't detecting it. Any ideas?



I found an old hard drive from school years ago and want to possibly obtain any forgotten files and reformat to put it to use again. The hard drive was given to me with Windows Me/2000 (I forget exactly which one) already installed on it.

It's a Western Digital 120gb Caviar eIDE drive. So far I've just tried to set it as cable select and windows isn't detecting it at all. My current drives are set up to a RAID config so I thought cable select may be the best choice, but I could very well be wrong on that. I walked away with my computer on desktop and came back a few mins later to a BSOD. Unhooked the drive and haven't had a problem since.

 

[evongugg]

Is the drive seen in the bios?
Check the data and power cables if not.
Try the master jumper setting.
You may need a JMicron driver depending on your motherboard for Windows to see it.

 

[Paperdoc]

See my post here for general rules how to set up IDE drives and jumpers:

http://www.tomsguide.com/us/forum/forum2.php?config=tomsguide.inc&cat=9&post=273978&page=1&p=1&sondage=0&owntopic=1&trash=0&trash_post=0&print=0&numreponse=0&quote_only=0&new=0&nojs=0

The key points to check are:
1. Do you have any other IDE devices in the port(s)? Your post suggests you do not. In that case, CS will work, BUT the drive has to be connected to the END connector so it can serve as the port Master - every IDE port MUST have a Master to work. If that still does not work, reset the jumpers to be Master, rather than CS (or Master with No Slave if that is the option).
2. Check in BIOS Setup and be sure the IDE port is enabled. Also verify that this drive is NOT one of the devices in your Boot Priority Sequence.
3. As evongugg said, does the BIOS detect the drive? With the right Size? If so, the hardware is working.
4. Windows cannot use a device with no name, and sometimes it fails to automatically assign a name to newly added hardware. You can fix this yourself in Disk Manager. Click on Start at lower left, and in the menu RIGHT-click on "My Compter" and select "Manage". In the window on the left column, expand "Storage" if necessary and click on "Disk Management". You will see two SCROLLING panes on the right. The upper one shows all the drives Windows can use now, and maybe your old 120 GB is not there. But in the LOWER RIGHT pane are all the hardware devices, and it should be there as a block with a label on the left saying something like "Disk 2" and a size. to the right will be blocks showing any Partitions present. If it has no letter name associated with it, just RIGHT-click on the Partition block and choose to Change the Name, then give it a letter not currently in use. Exit out of disk Manager and reboot for the change to work, and your old disk should be there in My Computer to examine and use.

 

[Guest]

Thank you both for your replies.
I'll give your suggestions a try and let you know what I come up with