ok so i had an external drive given to me, the person who gave it to me said that there was alot of music on there and that if i could fix it i could have it? so when i get home i realize he didnt give me the right power cord for it. so knowing that an external hdd=an internal hdd with an adapter on it, i opened the enclosure and put the HDD as a slave in my computer. It came up and installed(in vista)But its like you need to format it before you can use it. Is tehre anyway to get around this as i dont want to delete everything...id like to save the music, then format?!! Thanks for all/any answers.

Why do you need to format it? Is it giving you a message to do so? Is it recognized in My Computer and Device Manager? If it shows in My Computer, right-click on it and choose Explore and locate the music files

iTs giving me a message, i clicked explore..and it said Must be formated click here to format or whatever(same message) and its recognized in both Device manager ande MY computer.

Does it have an OS on it? I've never run a dual boot system but it seems like it might have problems processing vista information in XP. if it was me i'd unplug my original, set the one that says it needs formatted to master and fire er up. if it still says its got nothing then i'd tend to think that it really doesn't have anything on it.

IM on vista right now, trying to access a hard drive that was inside a removable hdd(its a regular IDE harddrive), It had no OS on it. Someone please tell me if i HAVE to format it, or if the stuff can be taken off. Vista is MAKING me format it. BUt i want to know if there is some program that will open it.

For some reason Vista is seeing it as a raw, unformatted drive. You might have to put it back in an external enclosure. If you still have the old enclosure, you can get a new power supply at Radio Shack. Just match the voltage and milliamp rating. They're under 10 bucks

Sounds to me like the jumper setting might need to be changed...to conform to the computer it's preently in.

Some enclosures use the Master setting, some use the Slave setting.

Many computers come with all drives using the C/S setting.

When the drive is added, it probably needs to use C/S too...or anything other than Master...for a jumper setting.

Louis

its reading the drive fine. Its reading it as a slave drive. just as it should. i need to know one thing, and one thing only. When a drive is added to a computer setup as a slave.(it already has various types of information on it that was put on by another computter)is it possible to NOT have to format it.

Yes, that's why you're getting all of these other suggestions

most of the suggestions, are immetarial to what im trying to do., although i do appretiate them