Can I externally attach an old XP hard drive to my Vista laptop?

[luckyjimm]

When I bought my laptop last week I also got a 2.5" hard disk drive enclosure into which I can plug in my old hard drive and attach it via the USB port, so it functions like an external drive. But so far I've had no luck getting it to recognise it's there. Do you know might this be anything to do with this laptop being Vista and the old drive being XP, or should that make no difference? Thanks!

[PLOlover]

you might have to install some drivers or something xp comes with a lot of drivers automatically ive heard vista is not so good at this and some companies are behind on getting vista drivers out.

[_dave_]

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that make no difference

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Something else is wrong, try the old HDD + Enclosure on someone elses comp?

EDIT for PLOlover response:

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you might have to install some drivers or something


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Not for a USB enclosure. Never seen one that needs drivers for any OS other than <= Win98 - and I've seen many and varied HDD enclosures.

Maybe a weirdo Vista thing, but I can't see MS removing generic drivers that were present in XP.... surely?

EDIT AGAIN:

you are not running Vista x64 are you? That would make all the difference...

[luckyjimm]

This is my laptop, it's Vista Home Premium:

http://vaio.sony.co.uk/view/ShowProduct....ory=VN+N+Series

This is the USB enclosure I picked up in the store:

http://www.pcpro.co.uk/reviews/92154...enclosure.html

Yes, it comes with a CD with drivers. My first thought is that this CD isn't Vista-compatible. I'll have a play around this morning and see if I have better luck.

[luckyjimm]

Ah, I've got it to work now - it's recognised the drive and I've got the directory tree. But I can't get into the documents and settings folders, which is where everything is. It says "you don't currently have permission to access this folder". But I never set up any passwords on the old harddrive! Any idea how I sort this out?

[luckyjimm]

Going into 'permissions' in Windows Explorer after selecting the external folder doesn't seem to help, I already have all the permissions.

[luckyjimm]

"Accessing data on an external storage device repeatedly incites a message stating “you don’t currently have permission to access this folder,” yet clicking “continue” gave us another window saying “Windows needs your permission to continue.” Clicking “continue” gave us access to the folder. This concept gets old rather quickly if you’re an experienced user. For inexperienced users, the feature can be downright scary. The good news is this User Account Control feature can be turned off — if you know how."

http://snohomishcountybusinessjourna...talk-mar07.htm

Clicking 'continue' doesn't seem to work for me, however, but I'll keep trying.

[luckyjimm]

Think I'm finally there - I had permission as administrator but not as user, so I changed that. Now it's slowly going through each file in the folder changing the security settings - I can see the file names so I think it's likely to work now.

[TheTROLL]

[ QUOTE ]
Think I'm finally there - I had permission as administrator but not as user, so I changed that. Now it's slowly going through each file in the folder changing the security settings - I can see the file names so I think it's likely to work now.

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Click Advanced on the security dialog and check "Replace permission on all child objects" or whatever the wording is.

[luckyjimm]

Thanks, yes, it's working now - just needed to change the permissions for 'user'.