Help - Hard Drive Problem

[Guest]

Hi there,

I recently took my old hard drive out of my old computer, and installed it in my new system. However, the problem is that the drive is not recognized by my OS. I've changed the jumper on the HDD correctly, the BIOS recognizes the drive, but I cannot access the data on the drive. In FDISK the drive shows up as a Non-DOS partition. Any suggestions, or something that I've forgotten to do??
Thanks in advance

 

[mpjesse]

What file system did you have on the old hard drive? FAT16, 32, NTFS, Linux, HPFS, etc. Also, it kinda sounds like you might of had some kind of file compression utility on that drive- or maybe a back up volume? What OS are you using?

-MP Jesse

 

[Guest]

The file system on the old hard drive was FAT 16. There haven't been any compression utilities installed. I'm trying to use it in a machine running W95. I also tried using the drive in the old machine, again, (also running W95), and I can access it no problem.

 

[Guest]

Sometimes a large hardrive was installed into a older system using the hard drive manufacturer's software, such as "Ontrack Manager" (or similar name) This was used because the old computer BIOS couldn't recognized a hard drive over 500MB etc. The software basically remapped the BIOS so that the whole capacity could be used. Usually no OS will recognize this. In order to reformat the hard drive you will have to get the software from the hard drive manufacturer (eg. Maxtor) that will allow you to delete this partition.

Another option is using NT startup disk, but this might only work if you formated your old hard drive with some form of NT file system....FAT 64 (may not be the correct name) is an example of a format that only a NT start up disk recognizes and is able to handle. FAT64 allowed for NT partitions greater than 4 GB (aside from NTFS).

 

[mpjesse]

OK, the only thing I can think of is that the file system on the old hard drive is actually FAT32 and your trying to install Windows 95 A which only uses FAT16 and doesn't recognize FAT32. But, you said it's FAT16- so I dunno. Virus maybe?

-MP Jesse

 

[Crashman]

Gee, that's odd, I have about 200 systems out ther with Windows 95 on Fat32! Only the early version of 95 was fat 16. I always repartition used drives and set them up Fat32 because it makes for faster data access and happier customers.

Suicide is painless...........

 

[mpjesse]

Yes, I was talking about Windows 95 A. Windows 95 B or OSR2 had FAT32. =)

-MP Jesse

 

[Guest]

May be you old PC recognises HDD in normal mode and new one is in LBA mode.Record HDD's size, cyls, head ...in CMOS setup of your old PC and make it's exactly same setup in new PC. Good luck.

 

[Guest]

Thank you all for your help. I've got the drive working now.