Need help with data transfer between 98 and XP

I am trying to help a friend transfer picture/document data from an old Windows 98SE system to their new Windows Vista system. Since USB memory stick drivers weren't available/stable for Win98SE, simply grabbing the data directly from the system was not an option.

I decided to remove the FAT32-formatted EIDE drive from the Win98SE system and drop it into my personal computer (running Windows XP) in an attempt to move the data to one of my NTFS drives. The drive size is roughly 12GB (I'm at work right now so I'm not sitting in front of the equipment). I changed jumpers on the Win98SE disk to cable select, booted the computer, went to disk manager and the disk was recognized, but no drive letter assigned. After right-clicking on the WIn98SE drive, all of the options (including drive letter assignment) were grayed out and the only option was to convert to a dynamic disk. I wanted to keep it a Basic disk, but even an attempt to convert it to Dynamic failed.

I'm not sure why this is happening as I seem to recall that I've easily done similar things in the past (i.e. taken someone's spyware-ridden drive out, moved important data off to one of my drives, then re-formatted it). If I can't figure this out, my next attempt will be to try putting the drive into a USB 2.0 enclosure and interfacing with it that way.

Does anyone have any suggestions or explanations for why the Win98SE drive, FAT32 drive isn't being "nice" in Windows XP?

Any help would be appreciated. Thanks.

Best bet is to get external HDD case and put that HDD into that case. They're cheap and are mostly USB 2.0 based. Very easy to install just screw in the 4 screws, connect the ribbon cable and power into the drive. Plug in the USB to your XP and your XP will see it as another drive. Transfer away...

This is a bit of out-of-the-box for what you are doing, but I had the exact same situation (trying to get data out of a 98SE box. Someone finally suggested that I FTP the data up to a webserver and then FTP it down onto my Vista box. If you have even just temporary access to a webserver, download CoreFTP and install it on both PC's (it is free and it runs on 98SE and XP and Vista) and FTP the data. Saved me a lot of time and aggravation.