I recently bought a new computer with XP on it. My old machine was 98ME. I bought an external USB case for my old hard drive. I removed the drive from my old machine and installed it into the USB case. When I plug the old and now external hard drive into my new machine's USB port, it installs the new hardware driver, but does not assign a drive letter.

When I went back to CompUSA (where I bought the USB case), the technician said there is a problem with the partition information and XP can't see it.

If the disk is good enough to boot to 98ME in the old system (still is), why can't XP see the drive?

Is there a drive utility that I can run that would tweak the partition info to make it CLEAN for XP, and not LOOSE my data?

FYI, mounting the drive directly in the new computer does the same thing, so the problem is not with the USB external hard drive case.

Thank you in advance for any help.
check the jumper setting, try put jumper to CS.
post back your result, thank!I will give that a try. I'll post the results, positive or negative.

ThanksGo to your control panel, admin tools, disk management and activate, format and asign it a letter. youl figure it out once your thereAaaaaah! But the key is that I don't want to lose the data on the old drive. I am attaching it to the new computer to do file copies from the old drive to my new system without having to create a BUNCH of CD's.

As AA last resort, I'll do just that. Once the data is backed up, I plan to redo the partition and then use it to back up my new system.

ThanksTo retrieve the data hook it up INTERNALLY as a SLAVE drive...then format it , assign it a drive letter that's not being used and a volume name...it wshould now work flawlessly.

patio. 8-)I've decided to put the old drive back in the old unit. Install a used cd writer and backup my data to cd.

After that is done, I will put it back into the external case, remove and recreate the partition. Then I will use it for backing up my new machine.

Thanks for the help.