Windows 7: Problems with New computer detecting old hard drive..

Hello everyone, new here and I have a problem. I'm trying to install a 320 gig Western Digital Hard Drive WD3200AAJB into my wife's new Dell 7100 XPS. It has all of her photography photos (a few years worth) on this hard drive, so it is extremely important to her and me as well.

Hope my terminology is somewhat accurate haha. I ordered this product to help me convert the old EIDE hard drive to a SATA connection:
Newegg.com - Rosewill RC-204 IDE to SATA Mini Vertical Bridge (for IDE device)

And I also ordered this cable: Newegg.com - Vinpower Digital 26" SATA Cable With 1 Right Angle Connector And Metal Clip Model CAB90-180-L26(S)



I have the hd physically installed in the computer at the moment. Windows 7 is recognizing the hard drive in device manager as drive letter Q. However if I double click on it, it says that my access is denied. I also checked in the BIOS start up to detect it, and SATA port I and II are shown, but port III where the new drive is plugged in, is not detected.

We looked around but cannot find the install disk that came with the hd but I'm under the impression that I shouldn't necessarily need it? I tried the EIDE to SATA adapter on both jumper settings, with the hd set on slave jumpers. Go easy on me, my computer skills are lagging behind a bit haha.

I'm at a loss as to what to do next so any help or advice will be greatly appreciated. Heading to bed now, I will check this post tomorrow. Thanks for any help

Welcome Bob,


Can you give us a screen snip of Disk Management ?

LOL not easily. I'm about 1 hour new to Windows 7, and I'm not as computer savvy now as I was a few years ago. Sorry

Start Snipping Tool Save snip as a file Upload using the paperclip icon ^ above in the post reply.

Screenshots and Files - Upload and Post in Seven Forums

hope this works...

Regardless what you do next, you should first make a copy of all that data to any external drive (since that data is so important for your wife) - possibly on the system from where the disk came. I see you experimenting a lot with this disk and the risk of losing your data is high.

Regarding the "Access denied", that may be a permission problem. You can try to take ownership. If that does not work, post back and we'll try something else.

BUT FIRST BACKUP THAT DATA !!!

Good snip, but it is only showing your primary hard drive, with the 3 factory partitions.

Where is the Q hard drive in disk management ?

It might be as simple as Right clicking on it & taking ownership.

You could be right? And excellent advice on backing up the data, but I don't plan on doing ANYthing stupid until I'm sure what needs to be done.

Another good snip, do you get a Menu if you right click on Q:

Yes I do. I think you might tell me next to click on the securtiy settings and work my way through until I find a screen at tells me no current owner, but that I can click on a list of owner names (my wifes being the only one) and take ownership of the hd?