i have a hardrive that i took out of my comp it was fully working and full of my tunes and other stuff, now when i put it back into the mother board it reads as a foriegn drive .

the only thing i have done is re installed windows, i did use another copy but the only thing i have changed is the file sytem in the windows setup options from ntfs back to pal will this be the cuase of it not reading my hardrive properly, and is there any way i can get it to read without re installing windows.

any help appreciated

 

I wouldn't have thought it would the file format being changed as fat32,pal,ntfs as windows can read all file types I don't see how this would have done it.

tbh I would reinstall anyways to use ntfs.

 

ok cheer's do you have any idea's to why my hardive isn't working is it common for them to just play up like that, the only other thing i can point it too is i used to have xp pro now i'v just got xp home as my copy stopped working of pro, also any way of changing the drive to slave, it's a sata drive and it was used as a slave drive before i just have no idea why it was working properly before and now it's just stopped .

 

hmm no idea really. Unless it is linked to the file system change. If it was secondary drive I have no idea why it wouldn't be working. Unless you took it out and dropped it on a massive magnet! lol

Does the drive show up in "my computer"?

 

lol no dropping on massive magnets or dropping of any kind, no it doesn't show in my computer but it show's up in the drive manager, but next to it it has no statistics and show's a yellow warning sign with foriegn drive written next to it, it offers me to format the drive but i really don't wan't to loose all my files, i'm gunna get my arse into gear and save what iv got onto yet another drive lol and re install windows onto ntfs i think, it's just pants as it worked fine before .

 

I would always go with ntfs. offers the largest file transfer anyways.
Its a SATA dirve right? I dont understand why it would be having this problem. have your tried any of the other sata sockets on your motherboard.
With it being defined as a foreign drive I should think it will be the file system. As Mac's do the same if you plug in a NTFS hdd. however I'm not 100%

 

If you are using XP You'll need to install a driver for the Sata drive.

.

 

cheer's i'll keep it ntfs for now .

and yes it's a sata drive and i'v tried the other sockets to no avail , hopefully a new install of windows in ntfs will sort this out well i hope so anyway, but thanks for the help and advice

even if it worked fine before? albeit on a different copy of windows, anything is worth a try though, have you any idea where i can get this driver from, cheer's

 

Motherboard manufactuers site, they will have a download section.

Its not a drive specific driver you need, think it what they call a chipset driver or just simply sata driver.

 

Come to think of it I didnt look to see what OS you said. (should learn to read posts better )
It might well be the downgrade from pro to home not giving you the drivers for the sata. Although thats usually a motherboard option as has been said.

Try having a hunt round for some sata drivers.

 

I was under the impression that NTFS could read FAT, but not vise versa

 

I have a feeling your master boot record (MBR) has become corrupt. You could run a simple command from the repair console to rebuild the MBR and see if that fixes it.

Command is:
fixmbr

NTFS is far superior compared to FAT, there are limitations on file sizes, etc.

Another idea if you have changed the SATA settings in the BIOS from AHCI to Native, which also causes boot problems.

 

If I'm reading this right, and I think I am, you had windows xp pro, and downgraded to xp home ? Now you don't mention formatting the drive because you kept all your stuff, and now in device manager it show's as a foreign device ? So do you have 2 hard drives in the machine ? Master and slave settings are usually controlled by the system's bios. A drive in sata 1 will be master and a drive in sata 2 will be slave for example. The drivers for the sata controller must be installed for it to be recognised at all, if they weren't then there would be a yellow question mark on sata controllers in device manager.