Windows 98se can not read a XP NTFS formatted drive.
Next time try it on some XP SP2 machine.
Bob
My 4-year old PC ''died'' recently. The problem was not the hard drive. I have ordered a new PC I expect to get next week sometime. The old PC ran Windows XP Pro SP2.
I took the hard drive out and bought an ''enclosure'' on eBay, one of those devices that turns it into a USB 2.0 External drive. The reason is that when I get the new computer, I want to take off some data (email stored offline, Quicken financial data, etc.) and transfer it to the new PC. Then I want to use this drive as a backup device.
Until I get the new PC, I borrowed an old Win98 SE PC from work that no one uses anymore so I could do basic Web surfing and check email online. I got and put together the enclosure and just as a test connected to this PC. Now if you have Win 2000 or Win XP it recognizes the drive automatically, but with Win98 you have to add included driver software.
I was very surprised to see it say the drive needs to be formatted. I obviously opted not to format it, since I want to get some data off it.
Did it do this because of Win 98 vs. XP? Will I have the same problem when I try to connect it to my new PC? Is this normal for these ''enclosures'', I thought it would just recognize what's on my drive? Please let me know, I really don't want to lose the data on this drive or have to pay $$$$hundreds to some data recovery outfit.

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