Image the full disk and use osfmount to mount it, could be an option for you.

but, Since you didn't say what disk or machine it came from, I'm guessing it's some sort of USB enclosure incompatibility or a BIOS/Partition/CHS/LBA geometry annoyance which can bite you in the ass when swapping disks between machines & enclosures.

I bet the old PC was using CHS addressing while the new PC is trying to use LBA. Unfortunately it can be very difficult to force a modern PC to use CHS when your storage device supports LBA, because the new PC really don't expect anything but LBA.

If your BIOS is newer than 2001, you should be able to set MODE = LBA for the drive in your BIOS, repartition and reformat your drive and it should work under windows 11. (LBA 48)

If your BIOS is from late 1994 through 2000, you should be able to set MODE = LBA for the drive in your BIOS, repartition and reformat your drive and it should work under windows 11 if your drive is less than 132GB. (LBA 28)

If your drive is older than 1993, it might not support LBA. Not sure what's going to happen on your new PC then.

However your best bet is install EZ drive on your hard drive while it is attached to your old computer ( http://vogonsdrivers.com/index.php?catid=19 ) . It is going to reformat your drive, but it should allow the drive to work in LBA 48 mode on your old PC, regardless of drive size or BIOS.

p.s. it's a lot easier to get help if you list specifics, like the BIOS version of your old PC, make & model of your hard drive, etc.

Are you sure it got formatted with FAT32 ? Only Win95 OSR2 and above can format FAT32. Original Win95 and Win95a only does FAT16.
What size hard drive ? What exact type of USB-IDE adater ?
WIn10 and 11 recognize Fat32, NTFS and ExFat internal and external USB devices.

Pretty sure the drive is Fat16 CHS which newer pcs wouldn’t be expecting or be able to work with.

All USB-> IDE adapters I've seen don't understand CHS. Here's a related thread: Adapter for old CHS ("small") IDE drives

Just an idea:

If the dirty old Windows 95 PC still works:
Try installing Windows 9x in a virtual machine on your modern PC, install a nullmodem cable and use "Direct Cable Connection".
The program has different names in different languages.

Pictures:
http://www.tiplord.com/networking/directcc95.htm

serialShinobi wrote on 2023-02-02, 21:52:

I think my newer windows 11 machine is unable to recognize the partition on an IDE hard disk I formatted with Windows 95, on a machine that's over 20 years old. It had EIDE and the disk was IDE.

What kind of disk is it?
Which size, which manufacturer, which type?

The Win95 boot floppy was made with an *.ima downloaded from REMOVED PC. It is OSRV2 and some files in the archive post date 1995.

The hard drive is a Conor CFS425A. It is 425 MB and PATA-1.

The computer I formatted this drive on is/was an Aptiva E-Series 580. It is a Win98 machine where I used the motherboard EIDE headers as the host adapter.

The USB to IDE interface used with a Win11 laptop is some Chinese item that says on the box "USB 2.0, to SATA/IDE cable - Amaz*n ASIN:B00BIE996S

I've realized I need to take partitioning more seriously if I'm going to make up ways to restore old computers.

So, I've been coming across knew ideas. I wanted to repeat an answered question from Quora that seems much like the question I am posting here:

Asker -
"How do you read an LBA formatted hard drive on a modern PC? I have a hardrive out if an old 486dx2 66. I can not access the drive on anything more modern than Windows 3.11"

Answerer - Bruce Epper
"All modern systems use LBA addressing (it isn't formatting) on hard drives. Your old drive was probably using CHS. Being able to access this drive is not reliant on the operating system, but the BIOS. (BTW, Windows 3.11 was a graphical shell running on top of DOS, not an operating system.)

During boot, the BIOS scans all detected drives and automatically sets the addressing mode and parameters for the device. It is possible, but rather uncommon, for the BIOS logic to detect this incorrectly and result in problems. (I've only seen it once with a 200 GB drive. Whomever installed it forcibly used CHS and created a single 137 GB partition. Detection on a newer motherboard assumed LBA.) You may be able to go into the BIOS and manually configure this device with the appropriate settings though."

I just found this looking for info about enclosures here on vogons.

Pre-installing Windows 95/98 from a different computer

Similar situation. He had a 486 and needed to revive the OS. He wanted to try a USB / IDE enclosure.

But someone explained that you can't use a CHS drive with a USB adapter. I am wondering if the whole adapter idea is worth the problems it creates?

It is likely that your disk may have no LBA support, so CHS only.
So it will make problems on USB adapters.
No wonder to me.

Disruptor wrote on 2023-02-05, 18:29:

It is likely that your disk may have no LBA support, so CHS only.
So it will make problems on USB adapters.
No wonder to me.

Any idea why my model hard drive, the 425 MB Conner, shows RLL as the recording method on "Stason". Tried a search for specs by Stason for numerous other hard drives in that genere and they all used RLL. Wikipedia shows it is the line coding technique and MFM used RLL and higher density disks like my Conner 425MB use RLL 1,7.

konc wrote on 2023-02-03, 11:22:

All USB-> IDE adapters I've seen don't understand CHS. Here's a related thread: Adapter for old CHS ("small") IDE drives

This

serialShinobi wrote on 2023-02-06, 01:31:

Disruptor wrote on 2023-02-05, 18:29:

It is likely that your disk may have no LBA support, so CHS only.
So it will make problems on USB adapters.
No wonder to me.

Any idea why my model hard drive, the 425 MB Conner, shows RLL as the recording method on "Stason". Tried a search for specs by Stason for numerous other hard drives in that genere and they all used RLL. Wikipedia shows it is the line coding technique and MFM used RLL and higher density disks like my Conner 425MB use RLL 1,7.

CHS and LBA are types of *addressing*

MFM and RLL are types of *encoding*

totally unrelated

serialShinobi wrote on 2023-02-05, 17:53:

I just found this looking for info about enclosures here on vogons. […]
Show full quote

I just found this looking for info about enclosures here on vogons.

Pre-installing Windows 95/98 from a different computer

Similar situation. He had a 486 and needed to revive the OS. He wanted to try a USB / IDE enclosure.

But someone explained that you can't use a CHS drive with a USB adapter. I am wondering if the whole adapter idea is worth the problems it creates?

using USB adapters with very old IDE hard drives is completely pointless, but they generally work fine with anything from the late 90s onwards

What you guys can theoretical try is using one of the PATA to SCSI converter boards.
They used to exist in the early 90s, afaik.

SCSI as such didn't have the compatibility issues we're used to.
It's a fully featured bus, essentially.

Modern USB to SCSI converters should be able to talk to those old SCSI devices.

But at this point.. It's perhaps easier to get a little motherboard with in-board IDE
and a custom boot ROM and use it to backup vintage HDDs.

I'm just thinking out loud, of course. I'm merely providing ideas.