multi-boot

In trying to recover data from an old HDD ,aborted the mission. Have a few questions I would like to ask ? Current system [Winxp,ACPI,VIA cpu to AGP controller,West Dig -IC35L0 40AVVN07-0, Serial Raid ATA bios,NTFS file system.
#1. will this system read a hdd as a data drive,that has win98 os & Fat 32 file sys.?
#2. is it correct to say,"you can't dual boot with win98/me/95."
#3. What does this mean.? "If your controller supports Raid , you may need to define your drive in a Raid array before Windows will see the drive,even if the mobo or system drivers are being loaded correctly. This may still occur even if you are installing a single drive.

 

1. Attach the hd using a USB to IDE (3.5" for internal desktop, 2.5" for laptop hard drives) adapter, like this http://www.newegg.com/Product/Product.aspx?Item=N82E16812232002 to be able to read the data files but don't expect to boot from the hd.
2. No, it is not correct to say you can not dual boot BUT if you expect to use a hard drive installed internally from a different computer, then the answer is NO you can't dual boot with it. The Windows 95/98/ME would need to be a clean install for the new hardware in order to make it bootable in a different computer.
3. RAID explained http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Standard_RAID_levels
If you are running XP, and the current hd is SATA, XP doesn't include the drivers. This

means the SATA drivers need to be installed before the computer can see and use a SATA hard drive.
3.

 

They are both ide HDD;s. The Raid is found as a problem device. Yellow ? mark. But, sounds like I don't need it to work. Would that be why the drivers were not installed? Makes sense. Thanks for help!!!
1 This might be a real newb ? Has anyone tryed a direct connection using only the parts that come with the 2 towers. Could you connect pc1 to pc2, just the ribbon from
the good systems second controller to the old HDD, still in the old case with own psu.??

 

Since they are IDE drives I am going to assume you aren't using RAID.

If you take the old drive, you should have a diagram on the label showing you jumper configurations. You want to set the jumper on the drive for Slave. With the XP computer unplugged, attach the old HD to the same cable as your XP HD but to the middle connector on the cable.



Then boot up to XP and see if the drive is recognized and you can see it in My Computer.

 

Another thought is if this is just a temporary connection then if your CDROM is also IDE you could just remove the IDE and power cables from the CDROM and attach them to the old HD. You wouldn't need to move the jumper that way.

 

The primary master HDD ,the one that would be booting from, is one of those that has 2 jumpers and about 10 different settings. Whilst ai would think that as long as it was left on channel by itself it should not be changed. But the many possibilities or options may be confusing. What do you think ?

 

Just two more questions
1. Since the primary master (boot drive) has all these different jumper settings,are these settings for different raid applications ? Not to be confused with the setting for primary ide master. I looked at the label,and did not figure it out. Seemed like it was ok where it was.
2. Have not heard of hard drives causing power issues. Is this a possibility? Seems like the attachment thru the usb with separate power is safer for system being used to access.

 

The three jumper settings are just Master, Slave and Cable Select. Older drives may have a setting (CLJ or similar) to make a drive larger than 32GB appear to be only 32GB for use in older machines that would be confused by a larger drive. Those settings should not be relevant for attaching the HD to a newer machine.

A single extra HD shouldn't cause any power problems. A USB cable or enclosure would work fine too. If you think you can use one in the future then they are a handy thing to have around for only about $20, like this one here. However, for one time retrieval direct access would be sufficient.

I wouldn't worry about RAID. You seem to be talking about an older computer and most don't use RAID. If you are just trying to recover data then you just need to attach the drive temporarily as a non-boot drive for data retreival. I just re read the thread title and it says "multi-boot", if you are trying to boot from this drive that is another matter and probably won't work because the hardware is too different.

This should be a fairly simple process if just for data retrevial and doing it wrong won't effect the data on the drive so there are do-overs if it isn't recognized at first.

You have the one HD in the computer and everything boots fine.
So remove the IDE data cable and power cable from the CDROM and connect it to the old HD you want the data from.
Boot up into Windows.
The old HD should show up in My Computer and you can copy files from that drive to the one you are booting Windows from.

If it doesn't show up in My Computer then you have to check jumpers on the old HD to make sure they are set as Master. (By attaching the old HD to the end of the CDROM cable you are putting it as secondary Master, so the jumper settings should reflect the Master setting. If you used to boot from the old HD then it is most likely already jumpered as Master.)

Try doing it that way as it is simplest. If it doesn't show we can worry about jumpers. I don't want to confuse the issue by giving too many options at once unless I am misunderstanding what you want to accomplish.