Mounting IDE hard drive on another machine

[Guest cag8f]

Hi all. I have an internal IDE hard drive from my old computer (Win XP desktop) and would like to mount it on my new computer (Win XP laptop). The hard drive is a Western Digital Caviar 80GB. I originally partitioned it into 2 separate partitions--one containing the OS and the other data. But I am having problems getting the new computer to see it. I have an IDE-to-USB adapter, and use that to connect the hard drive to the new computer. When I plug it in, I get the USB-connect sound. Also after I connect, when I click the 'safely remove hardware' icon in the taskbar, 'USB storage device' is listed. And lastly, in device manager, in the USB controllers section, I see a 'USB storage device' listed again only when plugged in. However that is the extent to which I can view this device. The hard drive does not show up in My Computer or the Disk Management section in Computer Management. I don't need to boot from the hard disk--I'm only looking to back up the data. BUT, some of the files may be located on the same partition as Windows. Any thoughts on how I can access the files on this disk?

 

Edit: I just tried plugging it into another laptop I have (Win 7). That did not work either Windows asked me to 'initialize' the disk when I tried to view it in Computer Management. BUT, when I then plugged it back into my XP machine, it worked. No idea why.

 

Continue reading...