Lost Files after Win7 Upgrade

Barman58 · 01 Mar 2010

Hi ken What are the existing Ownership / permissions on one of these folders? can you possibly post some snips of the dialogues? (it's ok to blank out any personal info

),

The other thing you could try is to copy one of the folders to a location where you do have correct access, the basic rule is that permissions are transferred with a move but when copied take on the permissions of the folder copied to.

Another thing that will often help here is the hidden administrator account - if you enable this it should override any confused permission sets and allow you to work with these files, in fact with faulty permissions this is often the only way to work with the files

Frostmourne · 01 Mar 2010

Ubuntu on USB:

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/In...n/FromUSBStick

KenPascoe · 01 Mar 2010

The Win7 install was a screwup from the beginning. Since I don't have a DVD drive, I made a boot USB stick. I have another HP laptop with a similar config and upgraded that earlier in the day.

Older Laptop

That machine has only one hard drive, no DVD, but it does have a base station that has a DVD drive in it. I booted off the DVD and ran the install - but it stopped long after the GUI launched with "Required DVD/CD device driver missing" and the install would not continue. I spent most of yesterday hunting for a solution, found lots of references to this message, but none of them seemed germane. I chased down current DVD and chipset drivers from HP and stuck them on the USB, pointing the install at them - to no avail.

In desperation yesterday afternoon I found a reference to editing a file on the install disk that allows the Win7 install to be an upgrade over the RC. So I ended up copying the files across from the USB stick, modifying the relevant ini file, and running the install that way - first to my spare laptop, which is running fine with no files missing that I can detect.

So I did the same to my working laptop - I was running tight on time and an Upgrade where all my existing software and setting would be preserved seemed to good to be true (and it seems, it was).

And here I am.

Ken

KenPascoe · 01 Mar 2010

Hi Barman58

Ok, logged in as the Administrator (no password). No files.

Damn, I really thought that was going to work.

Again, it's only files in the My Documents Folder. There are a couple of other folders off the D drive where I have some stuff stored - all Ok in there.

Damn, Damn, Damn.

Not sure what screenshots would be useful - here are three, let me know what you need to see. I have a gotomypc account, so could possible give you access through that. Or a VOIP call if that suits.

Ken

Ken

Frostmourne · 01 Mar 2010

The upgrade broke a lot of files - I'd salvage your files and then reinstall 7.

KenPascoe · 01 Mar 2010

Hey Frostmourne

More that than - the upgrade broke every single file in the My Documents structure - a good 300GB worth.

Downloading the Ubantu ISO for the USB stick at the moment ...

Part of my problem is Upgrading. If I could have installed from the USB boot and done a fresh install I would have. Of course now even if I go down that road I have no idea whether I will regain access to my files, which are all important - work and play wise.

Ken

Frostmourne · 01 Mar 2010

KenPascoe said:

Hey Frostmourne

More that than - the upgrade broke every single file in the My Documents structure - a good 300GB worth.

Downloading the Ubantu ISO for the USB stick at the moment ...

Part of my problem is Upgrading. If I could have installed from the USB boot and done a fresh install I would have. Of course now even if I go down that road I have no idea whether I will regain access to my files, which are all important - work and play wise.

Ken

See if Ubuntu can salvage your files, then buy a cheap DVD burner. Assuming you have a spare SATA port and power cable, the LG GH 22 series are a good buy. They don't have Bluebird either.

Barman58 · 01 Mar 2010

OK looking at the last snip -

the interesting thing here is the administrator's group having two entries.

The special permissions one may be the key here - if you check this you may find some Deny permissions set - if so - as deny permissions override allow permissions and the administrators group is a powerful one such permissions here may be causing the problems.

The unknown accounts are remnants of your previous installs and can be removed.

As this is a data only drive what I would actually do here, for testing, is break the inherited status of the permissions, (advanced permissions dialogue, change button),
and remove all permissions.

If you then add full control to yourself, the administrators, and system, this should clear the blockage

I have to go sleep shortly, (1:30 am here), but will return in AM to see if you have had any progress

Edit
forgot to add that the above is best performed as the full admin

KenPascoe · 01 Mar 2010

See if Ubuntu can salvage your files, then buy a cheap DVD burner. Assuming you have a spare SATA port and power cable, the LG GH 22 series are a good buy. They don't have Bluebird either.

That assumes the problem I'm having with the win7 install relates to a lack of burner. the other HP laptop I have has an external burner and is giving me this same missing DVD/CD device driver error. But yes, once I recover my files I will (one way or another) do a complete blitz of the C drive and a fresh Win7 install.

Ken

Frostmourne · 01 Mar 2010

KenPascoe said:

See if Ubuntu can salvage your files, then buy a cheap DVD burner. Assuming you have a spare SATA port and power cable, the LG GH 22 series are a good buy. They don't have Bluebird either.

That assumes the problem I'm having with the win7 install relates to a lack of burner. the other HP laptop I have has an external burner and is giving me this same missing DVD/CD device driver error. But yes, once I recover my files I will (one way or another) do a complete blitz of the C drive and a fresh Win7 install.

Ken

External drives have issues, not so much internal (or at all).