Got a 2nd computer today, nothing big as I will only be using it for more file storage (Acer MT300a) AMD 64/3600, gig of ram, 250 gig hd. Windows Vista Home Prem. Here's the problem: System comes with a 250 Gb Hard Drive (SATA), 2 Partitions, and a DVD burner (IDE). system runs well boots fine. I wanted to move a drive from my first system (XP) to this one as a second drive on the IDE chain. The drive works fine on XP system 200Gig Maxtor and has about 190 Gig of data on it, Formated NTFS, Basic Volume. When I add it to the New Vista system, It shows up in the BIOS as well as in the Divice Manager, and under Disk Management. But it shows up as an EISA Configuration drive, normaly saved for system restore partitions. It shows Healthy and Online But will not allow for a drive letter. I have tried it as Master/Slave/ and Stand alone (Removing the DVD). Pull it back out, put it in the XP system, shows up with all data intact. Anyone have any ideas? Thanks in advance.

mmm not at all familiar with Vista - don't anticipate being so either for some time... Anyway... Have you simply tried taking ownership of this drive and its contents (in Vista) as per: http://windowshelp.microsoft.com/wi...

I had the same problem. So I reinstalled Vista. When I got to the window that showed my two hard drives. I clicked on the first drive, and highlighted it. Down below I clicked on "NEW". This changed the drive to "0, Partition 1, Primary" I then clicked "Format". I then did the same with the second drive. When Vista finished loading I went to "My Computer" and there was both hard drives listed. Pure luck...YEA BABY!!!!!!