Seeing XP from Win7

My computer has 2 hard drives. One has XP and the other has Win 7. Both work great.

Now, when I am on Win XP and brng up my computer, XP is labeled C and Win 7 is labeled F. So far, so good. I can see both drive c and F (XP and Win 7) But, when I am signed onto Win 7 and look in "my computer", I can only see my drive for Win 7 and not see Win XP. Both hard drives do show up in Device Manager in Win 7.

Shouldn't I be able to see both drives from Win 7 like I can see both drives from Win XP?

Thanks!
Cissy

Not being able to see XP from within Windows 7 is perfectly "normal".. no need to be alarmed.. what has happened in most cases is the XP partition hasn't been assigned a drive letter.. that's why you can't see it from within Windows 7.. The solution that worked for me was to - Right Click on "my computer", then go to "manage", once there go to "disk management" and you'll see all the partitions you have setup... next, find the partition that has XP on it then right click on it and select "change drive letters and paths" then assign the partition a letter, it will then "mount" and you should now be able to see it from within "my computer" while in Windows 7.. Hopefully this works for you too...

Thank you Radenight. I assume you mean I have to do this on XP and not here in Win 7? I 'll give it a go and if I have a question, I'll get back to you.

Many thanks!
Cissy

Yes!! It worked Radenight. Thank you so much. Now, I can open both drives from Win 7. Boy, smart people live here

Cissy

Not a problem, always glad to help out..

Actually I'd do it from within Windows 7... that's how I did mine and all was well afterwards...

I had the same issue and the same fix and I can now see the drive that XP is on.

Yes, thanks also Radenight!

The following was true with dual drive system with XP on one drive and Vista on the other:

You can set Vista's System Restore to not monitor the XP drive, but you cannot set XP's System Restore to not monitor the Vista drive. The result is: every time you boot into XP, you delete all the System Restore points in Vista. The solution I used was: go to Device Manager in XP and disable the Vista drive. Now System Restore works for both XP and Vista. Of course one effect is; you can access the XP drive from Vista, but not vice versa.

I do not see any reason why XP/Windows 7 would be any different in this respect than XP/Vista. I disabled my Windows 7 drive in XP. Unfortunately you cannot use this solution if both XP and either Vista or Windows 7 are installed on the same hard drive (on different partitions).

AFAIK, a dual boot system with Vista and Windows 7 should not cause any problems with System Restore.

You can disable just the Vista (Windows 7) partition from XP so that if you just have one drive, you can preserve your system restore points. See the tutorial below.

System Restore Points - Stop XP Dual Boot Delete - Vista Forums

Interesting information pbcopter. I hadn't read that before. I will file that away for later reference.