I find myself unable to access some data files on a hard drive I took out of my old computer and have attempted to connect to my new computer. In a fit of impulsiveness & stupidity I failed to put together any backup or contingency plan in the event of my current scenario.
-The Hard drive is a Seagate Baracuda 7200.7 drive and served as a data drive in my old computer. I cleaned it out quite a bit and prior to removing it I had it’s actual contents trimed down to about 11GB of videos, mp3s and documents I wished to take over to my new comp.
-My old computer was running Windows XP pro 32 bit. The motherboard was a Abit AA8XE. This data drive was set as the master with the DVD drive slaved on the systems 2nd IDE connection(Main drive with OS was on first drive). Unfortunately this computer has already been wiped(dban) & donated to good will, so I have painted myself into a corner when it comes to accessing the data on the drive.
-My new Computer is running Windows Vista Home Premium 64 bit. The motherboard is a Gigabyte GA-MA790GP-UD4H. The primary hard drive and dvd drive are connected via SATA connections on this computer.
-I am using a hard drive enclosure to connect the old data drive to the computer via a usb 2.0 connection. I did not utilize the windows easy transfer utility as it kept wanting to back up my entire comp(both HD’s) which was not what I wanted. So I figured I could just treat it like a huge thumb drive and plug it in to the new comp for easy access to the files. nope…
What happens when I connect the hard drive
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The drive can be seen and is indicated as “USB mass storage” in the device manager, but it does not show up as an hard drive I can access in my computer. It also does not appear in disk management screen. I’ve tried different jumper settings but it does not work set as “master” or “cable select” and the remaining jumper options do not seem applicable (”slave”, “Master with non ATA-compatible slave”, or a limited drive capacity option).
I’ve tried googling a solution, but the answers I’ve seen with similar problems seem to always involve formating the drive to resolve the problem. I realize now how silly an assumption I made by thinking Vista would read a drive formatted for XP without a hickup.
Have I officially entered S.O.L. territory or might there still be a way to get access to the hard drive’s contents on my Vista comp?