Copy files to new PC - file permission problems

[linmix]

I've just bought a new laptop and I need to move my personal files from the old one to the new one. I've tried several methods, but they all give me problems with certain files: some files (and I have not been able to find any pattern here) will simply not copy over.

What I've done:
Move files onto an external USB drive and then copy them onto the new laptop.
Take out the old HDD and connect it to the USB port of my new laptop.

In both cases there are files that request admin permission before starting to copy, but the admin permission of my new laptop does not work for those files.

How can I get all my files on my new laptop with as little hassle as possible and without losing any files?

P.S. I did not set any special file permissions for any of the files and it looks like most of the files that won't copy over came from email or forum attachments, support downloads from hardware manufacturers etc. This has me even more puzzled since these files are supposed to be shared and should copy over without any problems...

 

[Golden]

Hi,

What type of files are you trying to move?

Regards,
Golden

 

[Qdos]

I would suggest you "take ownership" of the files in question on the portable USB drive from your new laptop, and then transfer them. This is a regular problem with Win7 on files migrated to the OS from another source, and I find that PDF documents are often the worst offenders (depending on which PDF editor/reader you use) for some odd reason...

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

 

[linmix]

There are different types of files that give the same error. Some are simple JPG files (they have turned up black on my destination drive). Others are .dat .vi and.DS_sore files from National Instruments code block files.

Having a closer look at the possible location of the .dat and .vi files (I say possible because the file transfer window indicates the file name but not the location and I have dozens of copies of those files, each from another packageand not all appear to have the same behaviour) some of those files are in folders with the names written in green (instead of black). I don't know what that means (I've also seen some file names in blue) but I mention it in case it is helpful.

 

[Golden]

Hi,

Please try Qdos' suggestions as posted above.

Regards,
Golden

 

[Britton30]

You can also use the Take Ownership on the entire external drive. Disable your UAC on the laptop till you get files copied over.

 

[linmix]

I added the Take Ownership patch to the registry and took ownership of the folder the offending files are in (somewhere 5 or 6 folders down. No luck though, I still get an error message asking for permission and then a second saying I need permission S-1-5-21-and a whole string of numbers to make changes to the offending files (also .txt .png... and all 107 of them in green)

You can also use the Take Ownership on the entire external drive. Disable your UAC on the laptop till you get files copied over.

Can you spell that out for me or provide a link? Thanks!

 

[Britton30]

Sure, go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts and locate the Change user account control link, click it.
In the next window slide the slider all the way down and click save. You will need to reboot to make the change.

 

[fseal]

Green folders mean that they have been encrypted :/

Are those your own files in there? Did you bitlocker them? Or are they things you can live without?

You won't be able to get access to those files unless you made a recovery disk OR if the original computer is still intact, you can transfer your user account (copy really) from the old computer to the new computer and then you can get access to the files in the green folders.

 

[linmix]

I'm on a Spanish Windows machine so I'm having some trouble finding certain options...

Encrypted? Not by me. They are simple downloads from the hardware manufacturer...
The old laptop is still ok (as soon as I put the HDD back into it), so how would I go about decrypting the files? Is there way to decrypt all files in a folder recursively or do I need to do that one by one?

 

[fseal]

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?)

 

[linmix]

Hmm, here's what I think happened:

I keep two very similar folders, one on my laptop and one on my desktop. In order to make sure both folders contain the same files I copied the files from one to another using the home network connection. If I understand what you say correctly this may have caused some files to "go green", meaning that rather than access to the laptop I'd need access to the desktop to get the original files. Am I on the right track?

Here's something that bothers me though: it would appear that I can share files and they can be useful if they are one step removed from the source (PC>Laptop1), but when I get to the second step (Laptop1>Laptop2) they are useless and can no longer be copied. So how do I sync my folders (I have a couple if those) without running into this kind of trouble?

 

[fseal]

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?

 

[linmix]

My initial sync was done over the network.
Because I ran into problems moving the files from laptop1 to laptop 2 using a USB drive I decided to get the HDD itself out and use the USB/SATA converter I have to copy the files... same outcome.

All three machines are Windows 7, though PC and Laptop1 are W7 Ultimate and Laptop 2 is Home Premium

 

[fseal]

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.

 

[linmix]

USB gave me the same problems.. it was one of the reasons I tried a "simple" HDD to Laptop transfer (that and the sheer volume of data I was transferring)

As I stated previously, the "green" files are all files I have downloaded from trusted sources. Unfortunately I don't have access to my desktop PC right now to check if those files are "green" there too. I am pretty sure now that a large number of the "green" files originally came from that PC so I'd like to check if they are "green" there too. Will have to wait until after the holidays...

If Home Premium has no Bitlocker, does that mean I should not be able to view the files from that environment, or only not open them?

 

[Qdos]

If Home Premium has no Bitlocker, does that mean I should not be able to view the files from that environment, or only not open them?

Exactly. The folders will be visible, but W7HP cannot decrypt them.

 

[lehnerus2000]

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]

OK, so now that I have access to the files on the 'old' laptop, how do I get the green files to go black again?

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

 

[lehnerus2000]

@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.