Cannot import foreign disk on dell

I've got an external hard drive, that i originally pulled out of a
tower (with data on it), and changed the jumpers to make it a master
drive.

I know it wasnt the right way of doing it, becuase as of now, in order
to access files on external disk, i have to go into Disk Management,
import foreign disk, then activate the drive. (known to work on xp pro,
untested on xp home)

The above process works for many of my machines that i connect the
drive to, EXCEPT dells. I've tried numerous dell machines, some running
xp home, some running xp pro, and none seem to work.


1 possible solution ? i've read that i might have to wipe the drive
completely, while in the original tower i took it out of, and from that
be able to the have the plug and play functionality it should have.

Please help,

Josh