Bit of an external hard drive problem

Folks,

First of all, when I visit here, I get the fact that I know next to nothing about computers and ancillary hardware/software. So, I won't be surprised if you tell me I'm in the wrong forum.

Anyway here's my problem, I had a Dell Dimension 8300 computer running Windows XP Home edition whose hard drive crapped out on my about four months ago. Like an idiot, I had not backed my stuff up. But, a Make It Work tech said he could retrieve all my stuff save programs onto an external hard drive. I bought a FreeAgent external hard drive and downloaded all my stuff.

But here's the problem, my new computer is a 64-bit and the old one was a 32-bit. When I tried to download the stuff from FreeAgent, I got a prompt saying I couldn't put the stuff on new computer because of the aforementioned problem.

My question is, is there any way to turn 32-bit into 64-bit info. If so, how can I do it. A google search gave me the impression that it can't be done. I just wanted to double-check to see if that is true, and if isn't, get help from you folks to help me solve my problem.

Thanks,

funkyuncle

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my new computer is a 64-bit and the old one was a 32-bit.

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That should not be a problem. My 64-bit Win7 system sees data from my 32-bit XP just fine. If it was NTFS, it could be a permissions/ownership issue.

What is the exact error message?

It says Seagate Manager Installer requires that your computer is running 32-bit Windows XP or 32-bit Windows Vista. I'm running Windows 7 Home Premium.

Then that's an issue with Seagate's backup software, NOT the OSes.

Can't you just access the drive directly WITHOUT the Seagate Manager? Did you make a backup archive or did you copy the raw data? Did you encrypt the data?

You can try looking for a 64-bit version at the Seagate forum.
http://forums.seagate.com/t5/FreeAge...-p/29409#M6411

As I mentioned, I'm not a computer guy, so I unfortunately do not know how to go about accessing the drive directly without the Seagate Manager. No backup archive was made, again unfortunately; as far as I know the raw data was just copied by the Make It Work tech. I don't think any of the data was encrypted.

I think I'll look into updating the Seagate software.

Could I download the info onto a 32-bit machine, make CDs and then upload them to my machine?

What happens when you cancel the installation of the Seagate software? Can't you just access the external drive through Windows Explorer?

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Originally Posted by jdc2000

What happens when you cancel the installation of the Seagate software? Can't you just access the external drive through Windows Explorer?

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Yeah, that's what I was getting at. If he didn't create a backup archive or encrypt the data, bypass the Seagate software and get to the raw data.

I tried that at first, with no success. But for some reason, I can access the info now. Don't know what the difference was. Maybe repeat attempts to get the Seagate Manager to work might have nudged it over. Since I'm not smart enough to figure that out, I'll leave it at that. But the good news is I can access the info. Yay!