Windows

That you created it on wasn't fully patched.

Vista uses a different Security System to XP and some HDD formatted on XP are not possible to be read under Vista. The only current fix for this is to use a XP computer to read the HDD and transfer the data off it then format under Vista and copy the data back to the Drive.

Col

no... the XP on which it was created was not a patched one, it was a authenticated XP

And u want to say that there is no solution to this?.. because the data is a load.. 250GB
It will be difficult to transfer the data off and then back

1. Right-click on My Computer, left-click on Manage.
2. In the left pane, click on Disk Management.
3. In the lower right pane, find the reader or hard drive. This may be listed as Disk1 or Disk2 etc. For readers with multiple slots, you will have a Disk# for each slot. Disk0 will be your internal hard drive.
4. Right-click on the Disk#, left-click on Change Drive Letter and Paths.
5. Click Change, click Assign the following drive letter, click the drive letter you want to assign, and then click OK.
6. If you have a card reader with multiple slots, change the drive letter for each assigned slot.
7. The drive/s should now be listed in My Computer.

Vista is notorious for chucking all the toys out of the pram whenever it encounters something that it didn't create itself.

If you go into a Vista directory structure, using ANYTHING other than the Vista file manager, and create a directory, then fill it with some files. - When you then attempt to do anything involving this directory that you know exists, Vista will throw up an error.

Vista will simply not 'see' what you know to be true.

Short of any other solution, you could always get another caddy+drive, format it on Vista, then use an XP machine to transfer the data across from the Vista-invisible drive to the Vista-visible one.

A year ago, I spent an entire Bank Holiday weekend trying to figure out why Vista couldn't find 24GB of MP3s that I had transferred to it, using Explorer2, via a caddy drive.

The 'problem' was that I'd created the directory myself. When I let Vista create the directory I then simply used Explorer2 (inside Vista I might add!) to transfer from My directory to Vista's directory.

<Single Typo>

thanks Old Mycroft... i think rather then looking for the solution, i should get a new HD..
But can u tell me one thing.. in my existing 250GB sata HD i have three drives, one 40gb in fat32 & two @99gbs are NTFS file system. now if i get a new 500gb external hard disk with the in-built auto backup feature and connect it to my old sata HD through the usb, will take the auto backup of the whole hard disk?.... n will the backup be as organised as in the old sata HD?? hw it will handle the drives in it?

I'm not really sure that the resulting drive will be any better than what you currently have.

I'm certainly no expert in doing this but I would expect that the Vista computer will continue to refuse to see the Drive Partitions or the data on them and not see any source Data or Partitions to copy across to the new Drive. It may be worth a try but even if it works and does copy something I don't think that the resulting Drive will be readable either even if the copy process doesn't corrupt all the Data.

You could try using a Live Linux like Knoppix to run the copy process but I would first format the drive up under Vista and then use the Vista computer to copy the Data across from the old to the New Drive but instead of using Vista to perform the copy run Knoppix on the computer. A Live Linux will boot off the CD and not affect the installed OS or any Data stored on the Drives.

You can download a copy of Knoppix from here in the Live Format.

http://tinyurl.com/5ucl2a

You need the one listed as knoppix-std-0.1.iso and it is 520,675,320 in size. Also grab the MD5 Checksum to confirm that you have the legit copy of Knoppix.

As for Cloning Software they tend to copy 1 partition at a time so you would need to perform 3 copies and the problem here is the way that they copy data as they don't just copy into a partition but copy the Partition so the Partition wouldn't be created under Vista and you may very well end up in the same position as you are now having the Data there but not being able to read it.

That is why I suggest partition the drive under Vista and making a copy under Knoppix at least that way you know that Vista made the Partitions so it should read them.

Hope that is of some use to you.

Col

I just fired up XP and and Partitioned a 300GB Maxtor Sata Hard Drive. I created a full extended Partition and Partitioned the first Partition at 30 GB and formatted it Fat32. I split the rest into two Partitions and formatted NTFS. I then copied a small Folder with some files into each Partition.

I then shutdown XP and removed the Sata Drive. I reconnected my IDE Drive with Vista and fired up. I then connected the Sata Drive to my USB 2.0 to IDE /SATA Adapter Cable and turned it on and plugged it in. It took a couple of minutes to detect the drive and install drivers, I had 3 new drive letters allocated and access to each one and the folder contents.

Unfortunately I don't have Vista on a Notebook to test with.

Second test was to completely wipe the drive and recreate the Partitions. This time I created a Primary Partition of 30GB and formatted Fat32 which in turn bacame the Active partition. I then created another two Partitions and formatted them NTFs. I then copied a small Folder with some files into each Partition.

I then shutdown XP and removed the Sata Drive. I reconnected my IDE Drive with Vista and fired up. I then connected the Sata Drive to my USB 2.0 to IDE /SATA Adapter Cable and turned it on and plugged it in. Vista immediately had problems detecting the Drive and complaining about USB not functioning. I had to remove the mouse and plug it back in to get it to work. I left the Sata drive powerd on and connected for 5 minutes before plugging into another USB Port and lo and behold the auto detection allocated 3 new drives. I re-enabled UAC, shut down Vista and disconnected the Sata Drive. Fired up Vista again and reconnected the Sata Drive and it was picked up immediately with access to the folders.

I then connected a 420Mb Connor Hard Drive to my USB 2.0 to IDE /SATA Adapter Cable. It was detected but not allocated a Drive letter. In Disk Management it is shown as Disk 1 unknown, unreadable.
The same happend in XP, the only difference was that it did not show up in Device Manager. I used this drive as I new that it had a copy of DOS and Win311 and wanted to know the outcome. Older drives are not very popular.

Back to XP and checked to see if I could see a 20GB IDE Maxtor with XP Pro installed to my USB 2.0 to IDE /SATA Adapter Cable, it was OK.
Reset back up in Vista and it was detected straight away.

I was connecting to the two front USB Ports on my PC. I re-enabled UAC to see if it made any difference to the detection of the drive, which it didn't. The only difference that I can think of is that maybe the Notebook is under-powerd or the way that the original drives or mappings are allocated. Fat32 is Fat32, NTFS is NTFS the only difference is the way that Vista loads its Boot Sector and as the posters Drive was setup in XP, Vista should be able to read it. I did say that I have excess time on my hands didn't I. :)