Clueless and Need Help!

A

aaron

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May 31, 2005
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Background: My previous PC was an HP Pavilion running Win98. The HP's HDD is a Maxtor ATA/66 40GB (model 9409BU8) with FAT32 format. The HP is no longer intact as I have scrounged parts from it for my son's PC, but I still have the Maxtor drive and need to retrieve some data files on it. So I figured I would install the Maxtor into my (newer) Dell Dimension running WinXP as a slave to my Dell's drive (NTFS format) and copy the needed data files...

Problem: The Dell's BIOS recognizes/installs the Maxtor and I see it in Device Manager (says it's working properly). However, the Maxtor does not show in My Computer or Windows Explorer! I'm stumped - what can the problem be? :oops:

I really need your help. :excl:
 
Go into Disk Management (Right click My Computer->Manage->Disk Management).

Check that the drive is active, you may just need to assign it a drive letter/name. Once you have done that, you will be able to see it in Windows Explorer.
 
Pradeep~ Thanks for the tip. Hopefully, it's that simple a solution because I even tried slaving it on the second IDE cable and got the very same result. :excl:

I'm way too tired right now, so I'll try that tomorrow and report back.
 
Sorry for not getting back yesterday, but I was sick as a dog (something I ate)!

As advised, I went into Disk Management and the Maxtor drive shows up as healthy & active, but no drive letter is assigned... When I right-click on the drive the abilitity to change the drive letter is greyed-out... So what do I do next? :?:
 
-> Just remembered...

...that I was using GoBack with my HP PC, (I'm no longer using it with my Dell)... Could that possibly be the problem? :eekers:
 
I don't know about Goback interfering.

Is the drive online?
Click to expand...
As previously indicated, the BIOS, Device Mgr and Disk Mgr all see the drive. It's identified and reported as health & active, but has no drive-letter assigned (and I'm not being given the option to do that). The only option I'm being given is Delete Partition! :excl:
 
SOLVED !!!

Using my friend, Google, I found:
"Ranish Partition Manager" Version 2.40 at www.ranish.com

It reported the Partition Type for the Maxtor drive as "Unknown," so I had it change the Partition Type to Windows FAT-32, and voila, it now has a drive letter!

Must be that GoBack altered the MBR... Whatever, it now works. :lol:
 
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