Accessing SATA drive

nigh · Mar 14, 2010

I've just got a new base unit & had all my old data backed up on a SATA drive which was installed as a 'D' drive on my old PC. Now that I've installed XP SP3 on the base unit & added this back up drive it seems that the only way I can get System Manager to recognise it is to format the drive which will destroy all of my data.

Can I get XP to read this drive without losing the data?

collinsl · Mar 14, 2010

nigh said: ↑

I've just got a new base unit & had all my old data backed up on a SATA drive which was installed as a 'D' drive on my old PC. Now that I've installed XP SP3 on the base unit & added this back up drive it seems that the only way I can get System Manager to recognise it is to format the drive which will destroy all of my data.

Can I get XP to read this drive without losing the data?
Click to expand...

What does disk management say about the drive? Please post a screenshot.

nigh · Mar 14, 2010

collinsl said: ↑

What does disk management say about the drive? Please post a screenshot.
Click to expand...

It finds it (Disk 1) but lists it as 'foreign'.
http://[IMG]http://i995.photobucket.com/albums/af73/nigh52/man1.jpg[/IMG]
If I R.Click I can choose; 'import foreign disks' or 'convert to basic disk'.

plodr · Mar 14, 2010

I found this

Run the Import Foreign Disks utility in the Disk Management console.
Click to expand...

Here's how to do it:

To Import the Foreign Disk on Windows XP

1. Click Start
2. Control Panel
3. Administrative Tools
4. Computer Management
5. Disk Management
6. Right click on the Foreign Disk
7. Select "Import Foreign Disk"
Click to expand...

and

What if the "Import Foreign Disk" option is not present.

If you right click on the foreign disk and the "Import Foreign Disk" is not present, this can happen because the dynamic disk was from a Windows XP Pro machine and the new machine has Windows XP Home installed. Windows XP Home cannot read dynamic disks as they do not have a normal partition table.
Click to expand...

and it goes on to say that if this is the case, you will need to put the drive back into the old computer and move your data to DVDs or USB drives.

nigh · Mar 14, 2010

Excellent advice, that fixed it, many thanks.

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Accessing SATA drive

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