Hard Drive not 'seen' in Windows - after adding HD from other PC

Ok here's what I did. I built my own computer and installed a new SATA hard drive in it. I then took my old 80gig HD out of my old pc after the pc died a few days later. I have files I need on it, so I was hoping to just install it and it would work. When I installed it, it doesnt show up in My Computer but the newer one does. I looked in the Device Manager and it shows both drives under Disk Drives? Please help I need to get to some files on the old drive and dont want to have to reformat.


Also:
I installed a wireless network card from linksys from my old pc but windows doesn't show it in the network connections and the linksys program says it cant find it either. It doesnt show in Disk manageer either. Please Help...Thanks

 

itsme2000lv,

OK...you've had 10 or more lookers now so as I jump on the bandwagon I will at least give you a reply to keep your attention span thriving.

Recently I had the scenario of on re-boot no HD recognised...well I went through a number of procedures and finally lifted the lid and worked the cables.

Fortunately for me this shook it back into life.

Not to you, but to many, lifting the lid and "fiddling" inside is just to awesome, overpowering and scary so they pay some "supposed" tech nerd to take advantage of them.

Not sure your case...well that was an unitended pun, will be as easy but it's worth a shot and anyhow I was going to do a post on my simple fix for the benefit of others. K-I-S-S

roy66

 

Bios setting

You have SATA connections on your m/b, most m/b with this have an option in Bios to only activate your SATA or only your IDE, or both make sure it is set to both... Then hopefully you can find it in your disk manager... if your hd used to be bootable, i.e. it contained an o.s. you will have to convert it to a dynamic disk. do this by double clicking on disk manager and right click on your old hd, select "Convert to Dynamic Disk "...this will erase the autoexec bat and change some formating options... !after you do this you will no longer be able to boot off this disk, but XP will be able to use it for file space and be able to read the files off of it... you wont loose any info... hope i could help...

 

I took care of the BIOS and am able to boot up with the SATA drive. The IDE shows in the Device Manager but does not show up in "My Computer ". The old IDE drive doesn't contain any OS just files, media, and a couple of programs that I need.

 

Found!!!

Here is what I did: Control Panel> Performance and Maintenance> Administrative Tools> Computer Management> Disk Management> and in there it had the old drive under Disk 0 and it said Dynamic Foriegn. Right clicked it and there was an option to import foriegn disk, so I clicked on that and....VIOLA!!!! It now shows, it assigned a drive letter, and all my files are still there. Thanks for all your help!!!