In follow-up and conjunction with another question posted here, I, too, have a NTFS hard drive from another laptop computer that I need to access/salvage. I have already connected it via a USB drive enclosure (USB 2.0 to IDE). It still did not assign a drive letter; all right-click options are grayed out except Delete Partition and Help in Disk Management. It appears with a dark blue band around it as Disk 1 (healthy) (active); as does my resident hard drive, which is fine at C: Disk 0 (healthy) (System).

The USB-connected drive wouldn't boot in its original environment; it runs Windows XP Pro. The resident laptop runs Windows XP Home. The contents of the USB-connected drive do not show in Windows Explorer, as it doesn't even see it as being hooked up.

The properties show that it is "Basic" and "Online" and that it indicates something about "Master Boot Record".

I had read in some of my online wanderings about the MBR, but that is a fearful place for me... :confused:

May I please hear your thoughts as to how I can retrieve the files on the drive? It shows that it has 21% free, so I think that the files are still on there.

Make sure you have all MS updates
Check device mgr to see if any errors appear there

Start, settings, control panel, system, hardware tab, click device mgr
Look down the list under drives or USB for yellow marks, if you see any, right click on them and click uninstall and say OK

Now, in the device mgr box (which you are in now) click on "action" and then click Scan for hardware changes, if that is not avail - close device manager and system

In control panel click on add hardware and see what comes up, hopefully the usb will be detected and installed properly

Hope this helps out

Seahwk -

I did all of the things you suggested... again...

It knows that there is a disk attached via USB... it even finds the make/model.

However, it won't assign it a drive letter, and it doesn't appear as a drive in Windows Explorer. It is almost like it can't decide how to regard it, as both my resident C: drive disk has a version of Windows XP Home on it and the USB-connected drive has Windows XP Pro on it. It might think that both are master hard drives, rather than one a master and one a slave... is that a logical reasoning? Could it be looking at the USB connected drive as one to boot from?

Thanks,
bangles0909

Check this link out, about assigning drive leter, see if this helps
How to change drive letter assignments in Windows XP (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307844)