Unable to Read 9 yr old Hard Drive from Windows 98 PC

[veritasffg]

A friend just bought a new eMachines PC, with XP Home, to replace a 9 year old Windows 98 PC.  He asked me to transfer his files from the old to the new PC.  I removed the old 10 gb HD, which has a 1999 date stamp, put it in an external drive enclosure, and was unable to read the drive.  I could see the drive in Windows Management console, but it does not show up in the "My Computer" drive listing.  I tried to read the drive with Acronis Tru-Image ll, but got a report that the drive is a "not supported" drive.  I then installed the old drive as a slave in one of my machines, with exactly the same results as above.

I assume the drive is missing certain features which are now required.  Do any of you hardware types out there have any suggestions?  The old PC has a CD writer, and that's about the only route I can think of now to extract data from this old, but completely operational, hard drive. 

[ChrisXPPro]

You might take a browse thru an old thread of mine on this type of subject - in case it gives you some other ideas. ....http://www.computerhope.com/forum/index.php?topic=60714

Out of all my previous HDDs I have problems with two most recent (a drive letter problem) - and also I have two real old ones going back to my DX4-66 days, which was back in mid 90s - they won't come up at all.  Many others however are accessible thru an external enclosure.

Certainly if CD burning is an option then at least that could be one route to rescue important data.

[BC_Programmer]

hmm, I think this might be related to the brand of enclosure or something, because I just bug out my 50MB HD from 20 years ago, and I can still see everything on it. ahh memories-

[veritasffg]

ChrisXPPro:

I read your complete thread - looks as though you had a doozy of a problem, which I gather has never been resolved.  I do appreciate the info.  I suspect that, if I were to reformat the hard drive and reinstall Windows 98 again, the same problem would show up again.  Now, I'm trying to get the old PC up on my network.  If I can see the drive on the network, my problem will be solved.  Otherwise - it's the old CD writer resolution.

[veritasffg]

Okay - I managed to get Windows 98 to connect to my network.  I can see the troublesome System Drive from the network, but I can get no info on the drive from the "Properties" menu item.  However, if I open the C drive, I can see everything on the drive, including file sizes for directories and all subdirectories.  So, at least I can get the info which my friend wants to save, and then burn it to CD or DVD.

This case, as they say, is now closed.  However, if anyone ever finds out exactly why it is not possible to read this drive when it is attached to any computer other than the Windows 98 PC, I would certainly be happy to hear about it.  Thanks to those who responded to this issue.

[ChrisXPPro]

Glad you can find the data and so hopefully do CD backups.

I too would be interested if any other feedback occurs.