Windows XP Moving Harddrive to another machine

Go through the device manager (right click on my computer and select manage.) and assign a letter to the drive/partition in question.

In computer managmnet right click the partion on that drive and choose change drive letter and assign it a drive letter

Well in device manager when I populate the partitions it shows the partition with the right size and everything but does not assign it a drive letter nor will it let me. In computer management the only thing it will let me do when I select the partition on the drive is delete the partition it wont let me do anything else because the menu options are blurred out for some reason. Which is what I need to know why, and how to get around or fix it.

did you change access rihts to drives on the old computer?

i agree with arnold...however:

1. Right click on 'My Computer' on your desktop or from 'Start' and choose 'Manage'......
2. then double click on 'storage' then double click on 'disk management'.....
3. then choose the drive with no letter and right-click and choose 'change drive letter and paths' to see if you can assign a letter to the drive.....

sorry seanmccully.... I didn't see your other post...

I used '7tools Partition Manager 2005' software in the past to do what you are needing to do in your current situation. It allows you to 'mount' many different types of drives with letter assignment.

is the serivce "Logical Disk Manager" active on your new computer?

AlexNek - What do you mean by access rights? Which means I probably did not change them, and can I change them from the new computer?

If I need to download software to get this to work, can anybody recommend a free program?

Alexnek - Yes the Logical Disk Manager is started and enabled

What is displayed for the type and filesystem for the drive/partition?

Could it be that it was a dynamic partition in the prior system?

"What do you mean by access rights?"
I mean  that on the old computer you can disable access to all users, by sample stay access only for admistrator.

you can try the last one
http://www.ontrack.com/freesoftware/

try from command line, please

Type:
diskpart

At the DISKPART prompt, type:
rescan

The ontrack software requires a diskette floppy drive. I ran diskpart from the command line to no avail.

The filesystem of the harddrive is an NTFS and the TYPE is basic. What would a dynamic partition do differently, and it is possible that it was a dynamic partition.

This harddrive was the primary harddrive in my brothers computer, he gave it to me because is computer is broken (though the harddrive still works). So it wasnt used in a server nor do I have the ability to put it in the old machine. I know for a fact that the harddrive works because we used it another computer. But what we had to do was use it as the primary drive and boot windows from the harddrive (in question) instead of the primary drive already in that computer (and then transferred data off it through the network).

Does this mean you were able to transfer the data?  Should you still need to attach this drive to your system, you might wish to consider getting a USB type of enclosure or an adapter that would connect an IDE/Sata drive to a system via USB.  It might make a difference and either would automatically assign a drive letter or allow for a drive letter assignment.  A link to such a device is referenced in https://www.experts-exchange.com/questions/22073646/Internal-sata-drive-to-laptop.html 
http://www.geeks.com/details.asp?InvtId=2020&cm_mmc=Froogle-_-Cables-_-Adapters/Splitters-_-2020

Did you try another IDE cable?
Try also connecting the drive  :
1- to the second IDE cable, without any other device connected
2- to the first IDE cable, jumpered as slave

...and how was the disk jumpered? as cable select ? then try it as master in #1 and #2 above

>I ran diskpart from the command line to no avail.
could you see the second disk?
list disk
could you see your new disk while computer booting/ bios?

Because the drive is SATA  there is no Master Slave jumper.

When I ran diskpart it listed the drive but did not list the volume. In Computer Managment it lists both the drive and volume but does not assign (mount) a drive to the volume (nor will it let me).

>>  Because the drive is SATA  there is no Master Slave jumper  <<  true, but you never told us it was a sata drive
can you test the drive on another PC? did you try other sata ports and cables ?

Actually I have an update on this, and will now be closing this question without awarding any points.

I am still incredibly stunned that I was not able to mount this partition inside my Windows setup. Instead what I was able to do was boot off the harddrive I installed in my system (I had to boot into safe mode because it wanted me to verify the copy of windows installed on that harddrive), and then copy the data I needed. The only reason I could think that windows would not let me mount the partition was because there was a windows installation on that disk (Windows Validation stuff) and they dont want you tinkering with Windows to bypass validation.


Thanks everybody for you help with this problem!!!!!

Ok I dont know how to close this so I issued the points to the first person to suggest booting the drive from another computer (or directly).



Thanks!!