External hdd problem, please help!

[Nic1980]

Hello,
a few days ago, my hp compaq laptop, that was running vista died. I have taken the hard drive out of it and connected it, externally via usb, to a desktop running vista. It showed up as an external drive and I was then able to access all my files I now have a desktop running xp. When I connect my laptop hdd in the same way, it doesn't show up in "my computer" in the hard drives section, and in device manager I have a "code 10 error" so the drive is recognised but will not work. I have tried some solutions such as uninstalling all the usb's, restarting the computer etc but nothing seems to work. Don't know if this could be a compatibility issue between xp and vista. Please help if you have any solutions. Thanks

 

[Nic1980]

Try to connect the hard drive directly to the desktop
motherboard. If the laptop hard drive is IDE (Parallel ATA), you would need
a 2.5" to 3.5" IDE converter. If the laptop hard drive is SATA, just connect
directly.
See if desktop BIOS can detect the hard drive.

Hi,
thanks for that. I think it is SATA. However this is totally outside the realms of my knowledge. Will get my partner to give this a go. Thanks again.