Checking HDD files capacity on drive without os installed

frestuffwooo

Hi i have recently built a new machine (as some will know) and have put somee old HDD's in it ithink they are 10 and 4 gb and may still have some files on either from Win Xp or Win 95.

Is there some fom of boot disc or live disc that alllows me to browse the HDD's and find out their capacities withou installing an os. I tried ubuntu live but it wouldnt show up any files or propereties about the HDD's.

Any ideas?

albertross_2

http://www.bootdisk.com/bootdisk.htm

pick a dos boot disk, and run ntfsdos http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/NtfsDos.html

if they are ntfs rather than fat.

An easier way is to attach them as a slave drive on a working system

PS The capacities are usually written on them, or can be found by looking up the model number on the manufacturers website.

frestuffwooo

I'm not quite sure what you mean, i dont need an actual bootdisk for Windows i need a utility that allows me to browse HDD's without editing them in anyway either by adding or removing files.

I need to be able to browse and see propeties of drives much like you are able to in My Computer but without using an operating system, thanks anyway:T

albertross_2

You need to boot off something to get there, either a working XP system with the drives as slaves, or a Linux live CD (which you've tried), or a bootable floppy disk. (e.g. a win98 dos boot disk, then run ntfsdos, and do dir or chkdsk to see what's on there).

http://www.frozentech.com/content/livecd.php

http://ubcd.sourceforge.net/