Copy files to new PC - file permission problems

Well if you put the drive in the old machine, and log in with your normal account then all the files are automatically readable because of your old account ID (that S-XXX number) and key. At that point you should be able to just copy the files from where they are over to another drive, outside the encrypted locations.

However... if you didn't encrypt them yourself or place them in a bit lockered folder then I have no idea why they would be showing up green. (Unless this computer was part of a domain and the admin set the computer up that way without you knowing?)

I'm not super experiences with home networking but I doubt that copying files around should do that by itself. But then here we are so I dunno... :/

Copy the files from one place to another over a network should be fine, the issue here I think (if I understand correctly) is that you are "sneaker netting" the files from one place to another by moving a hard drive from one machine to another, that can cause permission issues. Though like I said, I've never seen folders go green before without user intervention. Are all the machines windows? Or is like one XP or Linux or something?

Well moving the HD is definitely the most problematic way to transfer files in general. Good to hear that the network transfer worked fine, that's of course the preferred way if possible. Though copying the files to a USB drive should have been fine. Was that causing permission issues too? Or was it like just too unbearably slow? :)

back to the green folders. Are they folders you created on the laptop? Or were they folders that already existed from the manufacturer? If the latter, You may be able to get around them by creating new folders on the drive and copying the contents out of the green folders into normal ones...

Home premium doesn't have support for bitlocker so no matter what it couldn't read files from an encrypted folder.

If it isn't a Bitlocker (or other encryption) problem, you could try a Linux Live CD (e.g. Ubuntu).

Linux doesn't care about Windows permissions/security settings.
You should be able to view text and picture (e.g. gif, jpg, png) files without any problems.
If that works, you can just copy them to another location.

This sort of occurrence was the original reason I got a Live Ubuntu CD (and for the GParted Disc Manager program). :)

linmix said:

@lehnerus2000: that's the next thing on my list, but I'm on holiday right now and don't have my 'toolkit' with me

I just thought that I'd mention it. :)