hi, my XP machine recently suffered a corrupt OS and wheneva i try to reinstall the OS it crashes so i decided to install the hard disk as a second disk on my ME machine and copy vital files before reformatting the XP disk. Problem is ME doesnt seem to want to assign my xp drive a letter which means i cant access it and copy the files. is there a way get access to the files on my XP drive?? or maybe assign a letter to the drive? XP drive is set as a primary slave and ME drive is Primary master. any1 have any ideas? Thanks Tom -=Tozhan=-

Assuming it's connected & jumpered properly and is seen in the BIOS - - if the drive was partitioned as NTFS then WinME won't be able to work with it Computers in the future may have only 1,000 vacuum tubes and perhaps only weigh 1 1/2 tons. - Popular Mechanics, 1949

jboy's right, as usual. To find out do this: fdisk /status [enter] If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

hey, thanks for the quick reply. i ran fdisk and the following was displayed: 1 non-dos 2 ntfs neither has a volume label. can i create a new msdos boot partition and fresh install xp without delete any other files on the hard disk? or if not, can i sumhow create a dos partion formated for windows 98 so that i can access the files on the disk? also i cant browse c: it now says the drive is invalid so i assume its a partition problem. please help me i really need to access this disk and without an os i dont know how. -=Tozhan=-

oh i see why win me cant view it now thanks. If i connected it up as a second hard disk on an XP machine would i be able to browse it then? i assume ntfs is the xp format right? ive kinda given up on saving the os and just want to save those files now. -=Tozhan=-

Hi tom, You may as well plan to install XP, or better yet win2000, on the ME box. Since you've already had problems with the HD from the XP box, if you start messing with the partitions you may never recover your files. If at first you don't succeed, you're about average. M2

Maybe could use NTFS for Windows 98: http://www.sysinternals.com/FileAndDiskUtilities.html Freeware, but "read only". Best