# Import Foreign Disk



## satlogic (Apr 16, 2002)

Hi,
I recently had to rebuild my Windows XP PC.
It has two hard drives. I reblasted the drive containing the OS, but left the other one untouched (since I've backed up some data onto it).

Anyway - rebuild PC up and running, but I cannot access the 2nd drive. Disk Manager shows it as a "Dynamic" drive with status of "Foreign". Apparently in Win 2k there is an option to "Import Foreign Drive", but I cant seem to work out how to do that in Windows XP (Home).

Any ideas? Please HELP!

Thanks,
Sat


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2002)

Welcome satlogic to the forums

Are both of these drives using the same file system?

Fat32 or NTFS


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## satlogic (Apr 16, 2002)

Thanks for the welcome...

Yes they're both NTFS.

I've also tried Partition Magic but it doesn't give me any actions that can be applied to the "Dynamic" drive.

The only option I get under XP's Disk Manager is to convert the disk to a Basic disk - but then proceeds to warn me that I would lose all my data on the disk if I did this.

Ta
Sat


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2002)

I myself can't think of an easy way of doing this.

Do you have a burner in this machine?

Is the information on the second drive critical?

Maybe someone else has an idea that can help you out. 

If not there is a solution but it may not be exactly what you would like to do...


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## satlogic (Apr 16, 2002)

Yes I do have access to a CD Burner...although I'd have to install it into my machine.

Does Windows XP Professional help at all...suppose I removed my XP Home hard drive, and placed another hd in temporarily and then installed XP Pro on it....would this give me access to Dynamic drive?

Ta
Sat


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## Bracius (Jan 3, 2002)

Well in theroy yes. Only 2000, Xp pro, And XP 64-bit can see dynamic disk


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## Guest (Apr 16, 2002)

Where I was headed with this was take out the hard drive with XP on it.

This is all speculation of course as I have never used two drives with XP.

Beg, Borrow or Steal another hard drive and load W2K onto it so that your configuration is the same as what you had before.

Install the burner and burn all of info on the second hard drive onto CD's if it is not to much.

Check to make sure everything is on the CD's.

So now you should have one hard drive with XP on it.

One hard drive with W2K on it.

And one hard drive with your stored data on it.

Put the drive with XP in as master on ide 1. Also Jumpered as master.

Put the drive with the data in as slave on ide 1. Jumpered as slave.

Then reload XP as if you were starting from scratch.

If this sounds confusing to you that's OK because it sounds confusing to me...


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## Bracius (Jan 3, 2002)

I seem to remember that reverting a dynamic disk will erase the dynamic partitions, not to mention that XP Home cannot do this. If you havd XP Pro then you should have no problems inmporting.

As soon as figure out what Speedo said I am sure I'll end up agreeing with him (or her).:tounge:


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## Guest (Apr 18, 2002)

It sounds to me like what I am saying is.

He should wind up with two hard drives in his machine.

The original one with XP on it as master, And the one with his info on it as slave. This will allow him to start a new fresh load of XP as to recognize both drives.

And he will have some CD's with the info from his backed up data burnt on them.

And an extra borrowed hard drive that can be wiped.

This can only happen if when he loads W2k on the borrowed hard drive that he can import the drive with his backed up data on it.

Yeah that's what I'm saying..:blah: 

There has got to be an easier way but I'm stuck in a groove here.


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## Bracius (Jan 3, 2002)

Aye that's a good way too do it. Take your pick satlogic and let us know what worked.
:happyange


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## Rob (Apr 11, 2002)

Here Here Speedo. I got the point.


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## Bracius (Jan 3, 2002)

Any update on this?


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## radiosig (Jul 26, 2004)

*similar problem*

gentlemen -

hey, i'm having the same problem here. i just got a new dell and i took out my data drive, a wd 120 gig with about 100 gigs of data on it, from the old computer and put it in as a slave in the new one. although xp recognizes the slave and says it's installed correctly, i can't get at the data. the thing is, i'm running xp professional so theoretically i should be able to import the foreign disk no problem, but it's not giving me that as an option in my disk manager. both my master and slave in the new machine are ntfs formatted (i'm almost positive). i know the data on the slave is good, because i moved it back into my old box to make sure.

for what it's worth, "advanced" tech support at dell said that my problem was beyond the scope of their entire department. does anybody here have any ideas at all?

thanks.


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## hmcgrath2006 (May 7, 2009)

You are the desktop administrator for your company. All client computers currently run Windows 2000 Professional, The client computers have a typical disk configuration, as shown in the following table, You are in the process of deploying new Windows XP Professional computers to users in the graphics department. The new computers currently have one hard disk. Each hard disk is configured as a dynamic disk, and it contains the system and boot volume. To maintain user data, you are moving the physical hard disks from the users' original computers to the new computers. Laura is a user in the graphics department. You move disk 1 from Laura's original computer to her new computer. You do not move disk 0 to the new computer. When you run the Disk Management console on the new computer, the disk that you moved from Laura's original computer appears with the status of Foreign. When you attempt to run the Import Foreign Disks utility, the Foreign Disk Volumes dialog box is displayed, as shown in the exhibit. When you click the OK button, the disk is imported, However, the status of the disk changes to Failed, and you cannot access data that is stored on the disk. You need to ensure that Laura can access the data that is stored on the hard disk that you moved to the new computer. What should you do?






Move disk 0 from Laura's original computer to the new computer, Run the Import Foreign Disks utility in the Disk Management console.

this is the answer i got from a practice test question that i was workin on and i seen this.....

anyway hope this helps...


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## Punik (Nov 19, 2009)

One issue I ran recently into:
- If the dynamic disk is Raid 0 (Stripping), you cannot, and will not be able to, read the data. Half of the data is just not there, end of story. 
- If the dynamic disk is Raid 1 (Mirroring), and is *single*, without its "partner", it will be inaccessible on other, than original host system also. So, if you for example have a power supply failure and lose your motherboard AND one of the two mirrored disks, you are pretty much screwed. If you are trying just to move the mirrored data to other computer, first break the mirror on host OS - the data will stay the same on both disks, it will just not synchronize anymore. _Then_ you are able to import the disk on other system and see the data. It is a security feature implemented against disk and data theft on redundant arrays, go figure...  
- If you have connected the disk to your system not through PATA/SATA controller, but through USB dongle (regadless if PATA or SATA), _you will have _limited options with storage managment console, like being unable to convert basic disk to dynamic...  I suppose it has something to do with reliability of such devices and a "dumb-proof" design of the console, so that no-one get the bright idea to disconnect a drive in the middle of conversion process, or something. I dunno what would happen, but I am confident the guys who programmed this piece of software knew what they were doing. 

I hope this helps to address some of your issues guys...


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## Grendal1974 (Apr 29, 2010)

I have something somewhat similar, but not sure what to do at this point.

I have 2 Areca 24 port Raid Controllers. I have (2) 24TB RAID 0 raid arrays totaling 48TB of data storage, completely full.

These 2 RAID 0 arrays where stripped in Windows and I was able to access them correctly.

Lost my O/S drive. After reinstalling the O/S and installing the RAID controllers software, when I go into DISK MANAGMENT I see only 1 Foreign disk. If I attempt to import it, it tells me that data is incomplete.

If I go into the Areca RAID controller software, I see 2 controllers, which I should. Each show a 24TB healthy raid array. 

How can I get this Foreign disk imported without losing 48TB of data?

Thanks


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