NTFS drive, Windows 2000 and "Write Signature"
 

A researcher gave me a 320 GB SATA drive from a Windows XP machine that
he wants to have access to. I put it in a Windows 2000 machine and in
"Disk Management" it shows up as "Unknown". The only option appears to
be "Write Signature". Could doing this be a bad thing as far as being
able to access the data on the disk?

I have used "FinalData Enterprise" to see if there is data on the drive
and it finds two NTFS partitions with data. All looks fine. I can use
this to get the data now but it would obviously be better to have it
accessible the normal way. I just don't want to write the "Signature"
and then find that I can't even get the data via Final Data. I doubt if
this would happen but I'm not up on Windows so I'd like some advice.

As far as I can tell from what searching I've done, the Write Signature
command just deals with the MBR. It is also used to go to a Dynamic
Drive which I don't want to do. Would doing a fdisk /MBR be better?

Bottom line: what is the procedure I should use to safely mount these
partitions on this Win2K machine?

Thanks for your help.

Steve

NTFS drive, Windows 2000 and "Write Signature"
 

Yes, you need the signature before a drive can be used on Win 2K+.
I suspect they zapped it with fdisk/mbr, causing the problems.

"Steve Cousins" wrote in message
...
A researcher gave me a 320 GB SATA drive from a Windows XP machine that he wants to have access
to. I put it in a Windows 2000 machine and in "Disk Management" it shows up as "Unknown". The
only option appears to be "Write Signature". Could doing this be a bad thing as far as being able
to access the data on the disk?

I have used "FinalData Enterprise" to see if there is data on the drive and it finds two NTFS
partitions with data. All looks fine. I can use this to get the data now but it would obviously
be better to have it accessible the normal way. I just don't want to write the "Signature" and
then find that I can't even get the data via Final Data. I doubt if this would happen but I'm not
up on Windows so I'd like some advice.

As far as I can tell from what searching I've done, the Write Signature command just deals with
the MBR. It is also used to go to a Dynamic Drive which I don't want to do. Would doing a fdisk
/MBR be better?

NTFS drive, Windows 2000 and "Write Signature"
 

Eric Gisin wrote:

Yes, you need the signature before a drive can be used on Win 2K+.
I suspect they zapped it with fdisk/mbr, causing the problems.


Thanks Eric. And putting the signature on the drive will not put the
data that is on the disk at risk?

Steve


"Steve Cousins" wrote in message
...

A researcher gave me a 320 GB SATA drive from a Windows XP machine
that he wants to have access to. I put it in a Windows 2000 machine
and in "Disk Management" it shows up as "Unknown". The only option
appears to be "Write Signature". Could doing this be a bad thing as
far as being able to access the data on the disk?

I have used "FinalData Enterprise" to see if there is data on the
drive and it finds two NTFS partitions with data. All looks fine. I
can use this to get the data now but it would obviously be better to
have it accessible the normal way. I just don't want to write the
"Signature" and then find that I can't even get the data via Final
Data. I doubt if this would happen but I'm not up on Windows so I'd
like some advice.

As far as I can tell from what searching I've done, the Write
Signature command just deals with the MBR. It is also used to go to
a Dynamic Drive which I don't want to do. Would doing a fdisk /MBR
be better?