Attaching a FAT32 drive to XP

I recently purchased an external disk drive enclosure (USB 2.0 interface) from a local computer store. When I put a disk drive in it that is formatted in NTFS format and attach the drive to an available USB port, Windows XP recognizes it, assigns a drive letter and lets me access it just as though it was a "regular" disk drive.

But if I remove the NTFS-formatted drive and put in one that is formatted in FAT32 format, Windows XP says the drive is ready and available for use, but it won't assign a drive letter. Using the Disk Management function (right click on My Computer, select Manage, then select Disk Management), the drive shows as attached, but no drive letter. Disk Management reports it as a 38.28 GB single partition and its status is "Healthy (Active) ". But no drive letter. If I right click on the partition in the display, I get a pop-up menu, but all options except "Delete Partition..." and "Help" are greyed out and inactive. This drive has about 17 GB of data on it that I want to preserve, so deleting the partition is not something I want to do.

Can anyone offer some advice on how to make XP assign a drive letter so that I can access the drive. Ultimately, I'd like to convert the drive to NFTS format using the CONVERT utility. But I've got to be able to access the darned thing first.

Thanks in advance!

 

Is there any way to connect it to your main case as a slave (or to a friends who also is running 2K/XP)? If so, you could convert to NTFS and be in business.

I have no clue why it is behaving this way though. Haven't played with any external drive bays set up like that one. Didn't even know there were such things, in fact. Sounds interesting.

 

I'm about to do the same thing, I swapped out my old C drive that has WinME on it - waiting for the drive enclosure now.

To make this all the more interesting, currently have two copies of XP running on C (drive) - NTFS and D (drive) - FAT32, neither one of which has trouble accessing the other.

Regards - Charles

 

Hobie,

Have you rebooted between changing the disks? Tried another USB port? XP may be remembering the previous disk and need it's memory cleared by one of the above methods.

Otherwise, as Newt suggested, open your case and connect the disk as slave to get the data you want.

 

Thanks to everyone for their suggestions. I'm using a relatively new Dell system that does not have room in the case for a second hard drive. That's why I chose an external USB drive. So installing the drive internally may not be possible, although I'll open the case and see if I can hook it up and leave it dangling in the case temporarily. Not the optimum strategy, but if it works, what the heck!

I also have a spare drive, already formatted NTFS, and a copy of Windows 2000 Professional. I'm considering taking the Windows XP (C drive out, putting the spare drive in, installing Windows 2000 Professional and seeing if it will recognize the USB FAT32 drive. If it does, then perhaps I can convert it to NTFS before putting the XP drive back in.

Either way, I'll be offline for a while, but will report back my success (or dismal failure, as the case may be) on this forum. Wish me luck!

 

Hobie,

"open the case and see if I can hook it up and leave it dangling in the case temporarily " Almost exactly what we're talking about (without the dangling). Just lay it on the case, which is open and lying on it's side, mobo side down, being careful not to short the electronics (circuit card if exposed). The bios should recognize it as slave if it's jumpered correctly. XP will read it and you can place the data on the c: drive if there's room, at least the most valuable data.

 

Hobie, Have you tried the drive with the jumper placed in the "Cable Select" position. Sometimes that's necessary and seemd to vary from drive to drive. If may also vary depending on other factors such as file system type.

 

On Dell it is Cable Select.

Regards - Charles

 

Yes, I tried the disk plugged for Cable Select. Made no difference. But I have managed to lick the problem. Here's what I did.

I pulled the C: drive out of my PC and replaced it with a spare drive (just happened to have one lying around!). Then I booted from a Windows 2000 Professional installation CD (again, just happened to have one lying around!) and installed W2K Pro.

Once that was done, the disks could be read without any problems. Which leads be to believe that Windows XP Home Edition does not support FAT32 drives, despite documentation to the contrary.

Anyway, under Win2K Pro, I was able to convert the FAT32 drives (I had two of them) to NTFS format. Then I swapped the Windows XP Home Edition disk back into my PC as the C: drive and brought up WinXP Home. Now that the drives I had been trying to access were in NTFS format, WinXP had no problem with them. Problem solved.

I did some casual searching for any sort of indication that WinXP Home might not support FAT32 drives. I could not find any. But my own experiences suggest otherwise.

So if anyone is planning on importing FAT32 drives into a WinXP Home system, be aware of what I had to go through.

The $64 question is whether XP Professional recognizes FAT32 drives. Since I don't have access to one, I can't tell.

 

Hi Hobie,

Obviously my experience is different. But aside from that, it is well documented that XP - both Home and Pro do support the FAT32 file system.

Regards - Charles

 

To update whether a FAT32 drive is recognized:

Just hooked up my old C drive with WinME on it in a external USB drive cage and both XP's - one formatted as FAT32 and the other formatted as NTFS - have no trouble seeing and working with the old WinME drive.

Happy New Year everyone,

Regards - Charles