WinXP can't access a slave drive

[DavePL]

My friend has a Windows XP machine, with one hard drive, formatted as NTFS. We added a second drive, with FAT32, from an older Win'98 machine, hoping to retrieve files from it. It is configured as a slave, and the hardware seems to install with no problem. However when we run Disk Management, it shows a "healthy" FAT32 drive, as disk1, but with no drive letter assigned. Right clicking will only allow "delete partition", all other options are greyed out.
Running Diskpart, command utility, we can select the volume, but when we try the "assign" command, it gives an error message that the volume is invalid.

The drive has a small unformatted partition that can be assigned a letter, but the bulk of the drive is unrecognizable.
I was wondering how we might be able to get WinXP to read from this drive?
I'm used to older Win98 systems that will automatically recognize any FAT32 drive.

 

[figmatalan]

Windows XP will read FAT32 files (and indeed will format disks in FAT32 if you want). Try putting it back in the old machine again to ensure that it's still OK.

If it is, check the BIOS of the new machine to make sure it's auto detecting it OK too.

I've got 4 hard disks in one XP Pro system, 2 from an old machine which I'm copying files from and both of them were formatted FAT32.

 

[bcastner]

Are you dead-dog sure that a BIOS loader was not used on the Win9x drive?

EZ-BIOS and other loaders to allow the use of larger hard drives than the BIOS supported were commonly used, and XP will not put up with them.

. Download the drive manufacturer's diagnostic tool. e.g.: MAX for the Maxtor series of drives.

. Extract the image to a floppy, and boot from it. Run the diagnostics. Some drive utilities will allow the removal of any BIOS loader used.

 

[DavePL]

I don't know for certain if the old drive is actually good, so I might try to install it as a slave in a Win'98 machine. The fact that it shows up in XP's Disk Manager suggests that the hardware is installed correctly.
It is a Dell Dimension 2400, and the BIOS gives just minimal information, but it does show a master and slave drive installed.

 

[bcastner]

But the fact that Disk Manager will not assign a disk letter is indicative of MBR issues.

Again, use the disk manufacturer's diagnostic software (a free download) and check for a BIOS extension loader used to circumvent a workstation BIOS that did not directly support the drive.

 

[DavePL]

Much appreciate the suggestions, I will try that.