"Do you want to format" question on drive from old XP PC

Hi,

new PC, VISTA installed with one master SATA drive.

Have installed drive from old PC, PATA/IDE, which is recognized by BIOS and
detected by VISTA.

But: VISTA states I have to format it, and diplays a 0 capacity of the drive
( 150MB inreality).
I wanted to put the drive in new system because contains data ! So cannot
simply format !

What to do ?

TIA

Set the old drive to 'slave' or 'cable select' (if you have this option)

Alternatively buy a hard disk external box, insert the drive into that and
connect to your PC via USB. I did this when I purchased my new machine and
needed to keep the hard drive out of the old machine.

--

--
John Barnett MVP
Windows XP Associate Expert
Windows Desktop Experience

Web: http://xphelpandsupport.mvps.org
Web: http://vistasupport.mvps.org
Web: http://www.silversurfer-guide.com

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"MoiMeme" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
>
> new PC, VISTA installed with one master SATA drive.
>
> Have installed drive from old PC, PATA/IDE, which is recognized by BIOS
> and detected by VISTA.
>
> But: VISTA states I have to format it, and diplays a 0 capacity of the
> drive ( 150MB inreality).
> I wanted to put the drive in new system because contains data ! So cannot
> simply format !
>
> What to do ?
>
> TIA
>

Are the jumpers set properly?
You don't say what the old drive had on it...W98, ME, XP, etc.
Is it possible Vista doesn't like the format? (fat16 maybe)
It MAY work in a USB enclosure.

"MoiMeme" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
>
> new PC, VISTA installed with one master SATA drive.
>
> Have installed drive from old PC, PATA/IDE, which is recognized by BIOS
> and detected by VISTA.
>
> But: VISTA states I have to format it, and diplays a 0 capacity of the
> drive ( 150MB inreality).
> I wanted to put the drive in new system because contains data ! So cannot
> simply format !
>
> What to do ?
>
> TIA
>

Vista should be able to read any DOS/Windows formatted drive. But it being
150MB is curious. Depending on the age of the original PC, it's BIOS might
not have recognized a drive that large. A "BIOS Extender" might be
installed on it, something like Seagate's "EZ-Drive" or Western Digital's
"EZ-BIOS". Such a drive isn't recognized without the drivers/software
installed, and that is only done by booting on the drive. If this is the
case and you can figure out which one you might be able to get assistance in
converting it back to "normal" from one of their websites.

Ferd


"MoiMeme" <> wrote in message
news:...
> Hi,
>
> new PC, VISTA installed with one master SATA drive.
>
> Have installed drive from old PC, PATA/IDE, which is recognized by BIOS
> and detected by VISTA.
>
> But: VISTA states I have to format it, and diplays a 0 capacity of the
> drive ( 150MB inreality).
> I wanted to put the drive in new system because contains data ! So cannot
> simply format !
>
> What to do ?
>
> TIA
>