tranfering files with external hard drive

[ELynn]

So heres the deal. I have Windows XP 2003 with service pack 1 on it. I wanted to transfer itunes, pictures and my documents to my newly purchased laptop (Vista). I had a simpletech ex. hard drive that i kept my stuff on from my old computer. Well I tried to take that hard drive that was in sync with my old computer and plug it into my new laptop through a usb port and my laptop didnt recognize it at all. I tried to figure it out for hours and nada. so later i re-plugged my hard drive back into the old computer through usb port thinking, I wonder if it will read it on there still?, and it doesnt recongize it there now either. what do I do? did my hard drive fail? and i s.o.l now because i tried to transfer files, pictures and music from windows xp to vista without doing microsofts easy transfer program?

PLEASE HELP...the picture I had on my hard drive are very important to me.

Thank you in advance for all your help!

 

[rive0108]

1. You have to go to Computer- Manage and assign the new external Hard drive a drive letter for vista to see it.

Start> right click "computer"> Click "manage">Click "continue"> Click "Disk Management" assign drive letter

PS- to avoid any issues with Vista and the ex HDD I would Partition the HDD with Simple/Basic, then copy all your data into new Partition then delete the original partition, and expand the newly created one. Ths will prevent any "Ownership" issues with the External HDD and Vista.(Or better yet, Format with Vista Disk Management to primary simple Basic NTFS, assign drive letter,and then copy your entire User data folder over from XP to it)

 

[robertpri]

1. You have to go to Computer- Manage and assign the new external Hard drive a drive letter for vista to see it.

Start> right click "computer"> Click "manage">Click "continue"> Click "Disk Management" assign drive letter

I most certainly agree with this! Unlike W98 and XP, Vista seems to have a difficult time recognizing external USB drives. In the old days, an added drive would quickly appear in Explore, but not Vista. It might even pop a msg in the LR corner saying the new device is okay and ready to use, but it's not.

You have to follow rive0108's advice and configure the drive in Disk Management. Once that is done, you can remove and return the ext device all you want and Vista will see it, but the first time, you have to configure it.

 

[ELynn]

Thank you! I will try this and update the thread w the results.

 

[ELynn]

No luck. I have my external hard drive plugged in and Im in disk management and theres a (c and (d drive only. Am I supposed to change one of those?

 

[rive0108]

No luck. I have my external hard drive plugged in and Im in disk management and theres a (c and (d drive only. Am I supposed to change one of those?

C: drive is your Windows Drive right?
D: is your optical CD/DVD drive right?
It should show another drive- make this your E: drive and format it to Simple/Basic/Primary

 

[ELynn]

so theres a c: and d: thats all thats showing.

 

[rive0108]

If the drive is not recognized on either the Xp or vista machine then perhaps the drive needs external power (is there a power plug? on/off switch?), or has failed.

It may show as "Disk 1" with no Drive letter

plug it into vista, use the snipping tool, and attach the image of the partitions manager screen- like this:
http://www.vistax64.com/tutorials/148532-how-use-snipping-tool-vista.html

 

[robertpri]

so theres a c: and d: thats all thats showing.

Sorry to repeat this if you have already tried it, but have you rebooted with the USB connected? As compared to just connecting the USB while the machine is already booted up?