HD boot problem

I have an ide IBM Deskstar 60GBHD out of my old PC .
Has XP SP3 installed but I cant get any other PC to see the drive
when I attach it to the motherboard (have tried 3 machines).
Have changed jumpers setting, cables etc but nothing.
When I attach it via USB then its seen ok, I can use it like any other
HD, copy/move files etc, so I have managed to get some data copied from it.

I really need to try and get this bootable as there is software
installed that I need to run but no longer have the disks for.

Someone suggested that it may be a problem with the MBR and after Googleing, it in theory sounds pretty easy to fix, but as I cant get any access to the drive apart from USB I am unable to run Windows Recovery
Console to try and fix it.

Anybody have any idea how I can maybe find out whats wrong and possibly fix it without erasing the drive. ?

Thanks for reading

 

Yes I am familiar with the term drivers but wasnt aware that was the problem if indeed it is.

As I said in my OP I have tried 3 PCs and all the various jumper settings, Master, Slave, Cable, but none worked.

My main PC has Win 7 , would it maybe be worth trying to set up dual boot with XP and trying to see the XP drive that way.

If so how would I get it to boot from an XP Drive without actually installing XP or would that be the way to do it, create a new partition on the win 7 PC to actually install XP and hope that then it would see the XP drive ?

Thanks

 

Ok , will give that a try tomorrow

Thanks