My 500 Gig Drive Comes up as "Foreign"

[snapware]

Help Please.

My 500 Gig drive with all my files on it, is coming up as "Disk 1, Dynamic, Foreign" in the Computer Management.

I am scared I won't be able to access my files.

It's a 500 Gig Western Digital Sata Drive. Anybody Know what to do?

I need to access the drive.

[tug_hill2]

Hello snapware, All you need do is to go back to Disc Management and right click on the
"DRIVE XX" button. Then select Re Activate Drive - or it might say Import Foreign Drive. YOur drive should then be usuable. If the drive is Imported, but greyed out - DON'T be SCARED if it loos like there is NO DATA on the drive (greyed Out) you then right click again on the drive itself and select the re-activate option. Or you may need to do this on the DRIVE xx Button.



DO NOT SELECT: CONVERT DRIVE TO SIMPLE VOLUME or you will begin a format of the drive...! Aint M$ wonderful...!


Doc_B

[redwudz]

I ran into that once. This may explain it a little:
http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/reskit/c12621675.mspx

To import disks
1.
In Disk Management, right-click any disk that is marked as Foreign, and then click Import Foreign Disks.

2.
Select the disk group that you want to import.

Even if multiple disk groups are present, you must import one group at a time. If you want to view the disks that are part of a disk group, select the disk group, and then click the Disks button.

3.
Carefully review the information in the Foreign Disk Volumes dialog box to ensure that you can access the volumes after you import the disks.

However, read carefully before making any changes. There's no guarantee that you will get all your data back.

EDIT: It looks like tug_hill2 was ahead of me. But I would still read the MS link.

[snapware]

IMPORT FOREIGN DRIVE WORKED!!!

I swear that option wasn't there last night, but it works today!

[tug_hill2]

Hello redwudz, Thanks for the link...!

TH2

[TBoneit]

I've had to do that mainly when moving a drive to a different computer. Was this drive ever on another computer? Just curious

[redwudz]

TBoneit, I think that's where I ran into the problem with 'foreign' drives a few years ago when I moved a drive over from a different computer, I think it was from my Mac that uses FAT32 formating. It doesn't seem that common of a problem, and I had to do some searching before I found it was easy to fix.

tug_hill2, that MS link probably has more than most of us ever want to know about disk management, but there is some good info there.

[snapware]

Yes the drive was on another computer.


Should I move all the files off temporarliy, and then convert the drive to a Basic Drive?

[TBoneit]

I would move them off the drive, delete the partition and start the drive from scratch again if it will be staying in this computer.

OTOH that is just me being supercautious.