Accessing laptop hard disk from windows 8 all in one pc

[J4k3h]

Recently i bought a Windows 8 Ready all i one PC, i've updated it to 8.1. Everything is up to date.

basically i had 2 laptops that were 3-4 years old with xp on both, recently they died, which is why i bought this new pc.

My issue is that i cannot access these 2 hard disks. I have bought a HD caddie.

When ever i plug the HD's (one at a time only)... windows explorer windows freeze. the HD will show up under My Computer, but if right click or double-left-click 'My Computer' freezes.

I cannot seem to solve this problem, i really need to access these 2 hard drives.

Any advice would be great.

Is it a general conflict between Windows xp (on the disks) and Windows 8 on the PC (PC is x64, Disks x86)

 

[boosted1g]

Are you connecting the caddy via usb or esata. If it is usb it may be a problem with the sata-usb adapter of the caddy.

 

[HEXiT]

your best bet would be to try connecting the drives directly to the motherboard if there sata II.
just plug them into a spare sata port. theres no reason why the drives shouldnt work if there functional. even if there formatted with xp.
as for the x86 x64 thats irrelevant it has nothing to do with the drives format.
the disk format is compatible even if they come of a 32bit cpu equipped system.
windows 8/8.1 recognizes fat 32 (which is likely what your referring to) as well as ntfs. although the boot sector is slightly different for xp it shouldnt be an issue.