Still trying to get my data off the old drive onto the new without using transfer media. A sudden thought begs the question: Since the new drive with OS is formatted NTFS, should it recognize the old drive and let me manage data via USB given that the old drive is formatted FAT32? Thus far, it “sees” the presence of a mass storage device, but doesn’t assign a drive letter or let me even view data.
Ummm… eh? Where does USB figure in this? - have you got two computers booted up and linked by a USB transfer cable? - if this is the case, file systems are largely irrelevant, since the the USB transfer cable software will either act as client/server at both ends, or it will emulate an ethernet connection (in which case the OS at either end will handle the client/server stuff, but in this case, sharing permissions will be important)
If, on the other hand, you have an external USB drive housing, whether it will see the drive is pretty much dependent on the USB device - I have one that can handle FAT32, but not NTFS, for example.
Not two separate computers. One new PC, with the HDD from the old PC in a USB 2.0 external case. Once all of the data from the old HDD is transferred to the new PC, I’ll be reformatting the old HDD and using it as a storage media for images of the new drive in case of major failure.
Hmmm… I had a problem like this with my external USB housing; no problem connecting a drive and formatting it, but it wouldn’t see anything that was on an existing drive that had been formatted normally. I’d disconnect the CD or DVD drive in the new machine, connect the old HD in its place (possibly setting it as slave, depending on your configuration) and transfer the data that way as a one-off. No need even to fit the drive in the drive bay - just (carefully) leave it dangling, or secure it temporarily with a bit of duct tape.
I feared it might come to that. Any reason I have to take out a drive? At present, the HDD is on IDE-0, the CD-R and DVD-R/W are on IDE-1, so I still have the second position on IDE-0, correct? Or is it preferable to have the two HDDs on different IDEs?
have you looked in disk administrator. i set up a usb hdd the other day and it didnt appear to be working at all until i went to DA and it informed me it needed to write a digital signature on the drive. then it let me partition and format it (it was a brand new drive) .
Windows 2000 and XP natively recognise FAT32, so the problem is not there. FAT32 does not support file-level permissions so there is no problem their either. Disk Administrator does not necessarily need to write a signature to a disk for Windows to be able to use the disk. So it looks as if there is an issue with the USB connection. A common fault is plugging the external disk into a USB 1.x port when it needs a 2.x port. Similarly, the unit may need an external power source, not being able to draw enough current through the USB cable.
Failing the USB side, perhaps your best bet is to remove the disk from its housing and put it as a secondary disk inside your computer and simply copy the data across.
According to the literature with the PC, all USB ports are 2.0, as is the USB case, which has an external power source. Is all of this indicative of a problem in the USB case? I can’t think of much else which could be at fault, given your answers.
Is installation of a driver required?
No; if you have a spare, accessible position on an existing cable, you should be fine to use that (I only mentioned removing the DCD drive because I’ve worked on a lot of machines that had only one IDE cable fitted and had no convenient spare power connectors.
You’ll need to check whether the exisiting drive is set as master or slave and set the additional one the opposite way. It migth seem a pain in the ass doing it this way, but the data transfer rate should be very very much quicker, so it’s probably worth it.
I was told that XP would recognize the external drive without a driver. I’ve tried it that way, and also with the program from the driver CD that came with the USB box. Both ways = nada. Under C: a folder labeled USBStorage is created, but it is empty.
Cabled up the old drive per Mangetout’s advice, the system detected it, but still won’t let me see the data. After a bit of futzing around, I called an IT buddy, and we determined that XP is unhappy because it sees two drives, and the old drive has an active partition. Now the challenge is to get past that issue without toasting the data. I may just say the hell with it and go buy a cheap CD burner and batch my data onto CDs with Nero, considering that the old drive runs fine in the old PC-the data chunks are just too large to use floppies.
I’ll keep everyone posted. Many thanks for helpful suggestions! 