Member Avatar for philb1955

Hi,

I just got a brand spanking new computer, and like so many others was forced to give Vista a chance. So far its not been too bad. Except of course for the problems ;o)

Here's one of them...

The computer came with 1 Serial 200 Gig HD (ST320082) and 1 serial DVD/RW (DH16A1L). There is a single Parallel ATA connector which supposedly supports 2 devices.

MOTHERBOARD = M2N68-LA
CHIPSET = NVIDIA GeForce 6150SE nForce 430

I wanted to add my old XP computer's DVD/RW and 250 gig HD (with data) to the Vista box.

So I connected the HD (WD2500JB), and the bios recognized it, Vista's Device manager identified it correctly, but Vista's Disk Management did not. It wasn't simply disactivated, it was totally absent.

The computer came with diagnostic tools, which detected the HD and I ran a full battery of diagnostics and all passed.

I'd like to know what Vista Disk Management's problem is and if there's a way to fix it.

Thanks in advance!

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Good summary and well resolved by — this is a common case when a Windows disk that used the Logical Disk Manager (LDM) metadata is moved to a different machine or Windows edition. 's pointer to check the OS disk tools was the right direction; the extra context below helps when the simple import/format route isn't desirable.

Windows dynamic/foreign volumes store their layout in an on-disk LDM database. When moved, the OS may treat the disk as "foreign" or mark volumes invalid if other member disks are missing (spanned/striped/mirrored sets require all members present). Before doing any writes, image the disk or copy critical files off it. If Disk Management offers an "Import Foreign Disks" option, use that rather than initializing or formatting — that preserves the LDM info.

If import fails or the set lacks members, two practical recovery paths exist: (1) attach any other disks that were part of the dynamic set so Windows can reassemble it; (2) use a reputable third-party partition tool that supports non-destructive dynamic-to-basic conversion (commercial/free tools exist). Always image first; conversions and repairs carry risk. As an alternative for data extraction, Linux tools (ldmtool / libldm) can sometimes assemble LDM volumes for file copying without altering the disk.

Checklist: image the disk, avoid initialize/format, look for "Import Foreign Disks" in Windows disk utilities, reattach missing member disks if applicable, and only use conversion tools after backing up. These steps minimize data loss and make recovery straightforward when moving older drives between systems.

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Member Avatar for digitalocksmith

Sometimes disks have to be intialized. It's one of these 'added features' of Microsoft OS's.

Try entering the Disk Management Console from windows,

Start | command prompt | DiskMgmt.msc

If the disk is recognized in the bios as you say, it should be visible in here. Right click it and assign it a drive letter to see if this helps.

Regards

Member Avatar for philb1955

Thanks for the quick reply!

I already did just what you suggested. Thats what I meant when I said "it was totally absent" - it was not listed in the Disk Management window.

Maybe its because its an XP disk - shouldn't make a difference - its NTFS.

I've searched all possibilities, and haven't found anything like it. Bizarre...

Member Avatar for philb1955

Problem solved!

Vista's diskpart listed the drive as invalid. This is because it was an XP Dynamic disk, and cheapo Vista vesions (not Ultimate) don't support that. So I put the disk back on the XP box, backed up the data and used diskpart to "CLEAN" it. Maybe I could have done this on the vista machine, but I wanted to see if I could avoid deleting the data and reformatting it.

After putting the disk back on Vista, I used diskpart to create a partition and formatted the disk.

This would never happen on Linux!

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