Vista not reading slave drive from former XP install.

hello

I did a clean install of vista on a former XP system, in my XP system i had
two hard drivers the master and slave, the slave had nearly all my media on
it. Whilst installing vista the slave drive did show up but i of course
decided not to install vista on it. After installing vista, my slave drive is
not showing up on my computer, so i decided to go to computer mangement and
the drive is present but no options apart from "convert to basic disk," is
avabile and the disk is set up as "disk 1, dynamic, offline," with a red
downwards arrow on the picture of the disk (of which i have no idea what it
means). According to device manager the disc exists and is in the computer, i
ran seagates sea tools and the disk span and gave a ok readout. The disk it
seems is fine the only problem is Vista cant read the data on it which is a
complete bummer. I would appericate any help on this matter.

Thank you

mendosaprime wrote:
> hello
>
> I did a clean install of vista on a former XP system, in my XP system i had
> two hard drivers the master and slave, the slave had nearly all my media on
> it. Whilst installing vista the slave drive did show up but i of course
> decided not to install vista on it. After installing vista, my slave drive is
> not showing up on my computer, so i decided to go to computer mangement and
> the drive is present but no options apart from "convert to basic disk," is
> avabile and the disk is set up as "disk 1, dynamic, offline,"...

I have no experience with dynamic disks, but I just found something on
the topic in Windows Help which might help.

Windows Help is extremely context sensitive (unfortunately) so to see
the article I'm talking about you need to go to the Disk Manager console
(not the Device Manager) and click on Help and search for 'offline'.

You should see an article about restoring a missing or offline disk.

I've seen other posters warn against converting to basic disk unless you
are prepared to restore all your data from a backup, which is a must-do
no matter what you try next.

mendosaprime wrote:
> hello
>
> I did a clean install of vista on a former XP system, in my XP system
> i had two hard drivers the master and slave, the slave had nearly all
> my media on it. Whilst installing vista the slave drive did show up
> but i of course decided not to install vista on it. After installing
> vista, my slave drive is not showing up on my computer, so i decided
> to go to computer mangement and the drive is present but no options
> apart from "convert to basic disk," is avabile and the disk is set up
> as "disk 1, dynamic, offline," with a red downwards arrow on the
> picture of the disk (of which i have no idea what it means).
> According to device manager the disc exists and is in the computer, i
> ran seagates sea tools and the disk span and gave a ok readout. The
> disk it seems is fine the only problem is Vista cant read the data on
> it which is a complete bummer. I would appericate any help on this
> matter.
>
> Thank you

When you're in Disk Management can you right click on the disk and select
'Reactivate'?

thats the main problem, vista wont let me reactivate the hardrive, ive been
into the computer mangement help, and tried everything that is applicable to
my problem, even tried going to cmd and using diskpart but that wont
reactivate the disk at all, i dont want to change it to a basic drive because
i will be losing about 7 years of data then. Ive added a screenshot to show u
guys the problem.

http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...s/hddprob1.jpg

"Neil Harley" wrote:

> mendosaprime wrote:
> > hello
> >
> > I did a clean install of vista on a former XP system, in my XP system
> > i had two hard drivers the master and slave, the slave had nearly all
> > my media on it. Whilst installing vista the slave drive did show up
> > but i of course decided not to install vista on it. After installing
> > vista, my slave drive is not showing up on my computer, so i decided
> > to go to computer mangement and the drive is present but no options
> > apart from "convert to basic disk," is avabile and the disk is set up
> > as "disk 1, dynamic, offline," with a red downwards arrow on the
> > picture of the disk (of which i have no idea what it means).
> > According to device manager the disc exists and is in the computer, i
> > ran seagates sea tools and the disk span and gave a ok readout. The
> > disk it seems is fine the only problem is Vista cant read the data on
> > it which is a complete bummer. I would appericate any help on this
> > matter.
> >
> > Thank you
>
> When you're in Disk Management can you right click on the disk and select
> 'Reactivate'?
>

mendosaprime wrote:
> thats the main problem, vista wont let me reactivate the hardrive,
> ive been into the computer mangement help, and tried everything that
> is applicable to my problem, even tried going to cmd and using
> diskpart but that wont reactivate the disk at all, i dont want to
> change it to a basic drive because i will be losing about 7 years of
> data then. Ive added a screenshot to show u guys the problem.
>
> http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...s/hddprob1.jpg

It seems you can convert it back to a basic disk with no loss of data but
I'd ghost the drive first though.
http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806

If you can ghost the dynamic drive you could then convert it to basic before
restoring the image. I don't think ghost cares about dynamic or basic disks
when it's restoring data but I could be wrong.

i have 3 sata drives that work fine under xp but will not work under vista.
even if fitted into an external enclosure designed for sata drives and
connected by usb. I have the same problem as listed here. Maybe its the
chipset?

"Neil Harley" wrote:

> mendosaprime wrote:
> > thats the main problem, vista wont let me reactivate the hardrive,
> > ive been into the computer mangement help, and tried everything that
> > is applicable to my problem, even tried going to cmd and using
> > diskpart but that wont reactivate the disk at all, i dont want to
> > change it to a basic drive because i will be losing about 7 years of
> > data then. Ive added a screenshot to show u guys the problem.
> >
> > http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...s/hddprob1.jpg
>
> It seems you can convert it back to a basic disk with no loss of data but
> I'd ghost the drive first though.
> http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806
>
> If you can ghost the dynamic drive you could then convert it to basic before
> restoring the image. I don't think ghost cares about dynamic or basic disks
> when it's restoring data but I could be wrong.
>
>
>

This from Ned Buckmaster:
After further research, I found that Home Basic and Home Premium do NOT
handle dynamic disks."

Apparently if you have Vista Home and you're running any dynamic hard disks
you're in a bit of trouble.... anyone out there know of a solution to this
one?

"kev711" wrote:

> i have 3 sata drives that work fine under xp but will not work under vista.
> even if fitted into an external enclosure designed for sata drives and
> connected by usb. I have the same problem as listed here. Maybe its the
> chipset?
>
> "Neil Harley" wrote:
>
> > mendosaprime wrote:
> > > thats the main problem, vista wont let me reactivate the hardrive,
> > > ive been into the computer mangement help, and tried everything that
> > > is applicable to my problem, even tried going to cmd and using
> > > diskpart but that wont reactivate the disk at all, i dont want to
> > > change it to a basic drive because i will be losing about 7 years of
> > > data then. Ive added a screenshot to show u guys the problem.
> > >
> > > http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...s/hddprob1.jpg
> >
> > It seems you can convert it back to a basic disk with no loss of data but
> > I'd ghost the drive first though.
> > http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806
> >
> > If you can ghost the dynamic drive you could then convert it to basic before
> > restoring the image. I don't think ghost cares about dynamic or basic disks
> > when it's restoring data but I could be wrong.
> >
> >
> >

The only way i have got around this problem was to put my disks into a
computer running xp and saving the files i needed. Then i put them back into
the computer running vista home premium, converted them to basic disks and
now they work fine. It was just a hell of a lot of trouble to go to to save
my files. I am not impressed with microsoft at all.

"Chopper" wrote:

> This from Ned Buckmaster:
> After further research, I found that Home Basic and Home Premium do NOT
> handle dynamic disks."
>
> Apparently if you have Vista Home and you're running any dynamic hard disks
> you're in a bit of trouble.... anyone out there know of a solution to this
> one?
>
> "kev711" wrote:
>
> > i have 3 sata drives that work fine under xp but will not work under vista.
> > even if fitted into an external enclosure designed for sata drives and
> > connected by usb. I have the same problem as listed here. Maybe its the
> > chipset?
> >
> > "Neil Harley" wrote:
> >
> > > mendosaprime wrote:
> > > > thats the main problem, vista wont let me reactivate the hardrive,
> > > > ive been into the computer mangement help, and tried everything that
> > > > is applicable to my problem, even tried going to cmd and using
> > > > diskpart but that wont reactivate the disk at all, i dont want to
> > > > change it to a basic drive because i will be losing about 7 years of
> > > > data then. Ive added a screenshot to show u guys the problem.
> > > >
> > > > http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...s/hddprob1.jpg
> > >
> > > It seems you can convert it back to a basic disk with no loss of data but
> > > I'd ghost the drive first though.
> > > http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806
> > >
> > > If you can ghost the dynamic drive you could then convert it to basic before
> > > restoring the image. I don't think ghost cares about dynamic or basic disks
> > > when it's restoring data but I could be wrong.
> > >
> > >
> > >

The only thing I can think of that may be a little easier is put the dynamic
drives in an XP or 2000 machine somewhere on the network and copy the data
across the network and then install the drives as basic disks and copy the
data back to them from the network again.

Not a good option but it is a safe one.

Cecil

"kev711" wrote:

> The only way i have got around this problem was to put my disks into a
> computer running xp and saving the files i needed. Then i put them back into
> the computer running vista home premium, converted them to basic disks and
> now they work fine. It was just a hell of a lot of trouble to go to to save
> my files. I am not impressed with microsoft at all.
>
> "Chopper" wrote:
>
> > This from Ned Buckmaster:
> > After further research, I found that Home Basic and Home Premium do NOT
> > handle dynamic disks."
> >
> > Apparently if you have Vista Home and you're running any dynamic hard disks
> > you're in a bit of trouble.... anyone out there know of a solution to this
> > one?
> >
> > "kev711" wrote:
> >
> > > i have 3 sata drives that work fine under xp but will not work under vista.
> > > even if fitted into an external enclosure designed for sata drives and
> > > connected by usb. I have the same problem as listed here. Maybe its the
> > > chipset?
> > >
> > > "Neil Harley" wrote:
> > >
> > > > mendosaprime wrote:
> > > > > thats the main problem, vista wont let me reactivate the hardrive,
> > > > > ive been into the computer mangement help, and tried everything that
> > > > > is applicable to my problem, even tried going to cmd and using
> > > > > diskpart but that wont reactivate the disk at all, i dont want to
> > > > > change it to a basic drive because i will be losing about 7 years of
> > > > > data then. Ive added a screenshot to show u guys the problem.
> > > > >
> > > > > http://i168.photobucket.com/albums/u...s/hddprob1.jpg
> > > >
> > > > It seems you can convert it back to a basic disk with no loss of data but
> > > > I'd ghost the drive first though.
> > > > http://faq.arstechnica.com/link.php?i=1806
> > > >
> > > > If you can ghost the dynamic drive you could then convert it to basic before
> > > > restoring the image. I don't think ghost cares about dynamic or basic disks
> > > > when it's restoring data but I could be wrong.
> > > >
> > > >
> > > >