I salvaged my old hard drive to an external enclosure.(

FZ21Z · 25 Feb 2010

Strange. I've got files of a few drives requiring ownership, and all it required was a right click to take ownership of the whole drive.

gregrocker · 25 Feb 2010

Another good reason to drag your files manually and not use transfer wizards.

Normally just copying over the active User file will get everything - including hidden AppData (settings), although that is best left unimported as it is a corruption path.

wallyinnc · 25 Feb 2010

hgernhardtjr said:

I had Googled that site last night and followed the steps with no luck. Perhaps I missed something, though, so will try again this evening. The thing that frustrates me though, is whenever Win7 fusses at me it demounts that external drive and I have to turn it off and back on for Win7 to recognize it again (only when trying to "take ownership" of my own directory ... like I said, all other files on that drive are accessible).

Check if you don't have a user named "All users" or something like that with no permissions for that drive / folders. Check the permissions for "Users" and "Administrators" as well, all should be full control. It happened to me that I gave my own user control, but these generic users had no access and somehow overruled and denied my access. I solved it when I changed them.

hgernhardtjr · 25 Feb 2010

Thanks for everyone's suggestions. Right click for ownership does not work at all, at least for me on this external XP drive.

Dragging and dropping my files is exactly what I want to do, Greg, since I remain in control of where they go. I was able to open the other users that I looked at, Wally, but will double check to make sure I didn't miss one.

wallyinnc · 25 Feb 2010

Tks Henry
But I meant the users in your present computer, not the old ones still in the old drive.
When you access the Permissions window, check to see what the permissions are for all users:

I salvaged my old hard drive to an external enclosure.(-permissions.jpg

hgernhardtjr · 25 Feb 2010

Yep, I misunderstood ... will do that. Thanks for the clarification!

hgernhardtjr · 25 Feb 2010

Well, no luck ... so I simply plugged it into an XP machine and was able to read ALL the files and begin my rather selective transfers using a couple of 8gb flash drives and some DVDs. Slow, but there's less than 50gb of stuff to transfer (plus or minus). I'll go to the external backup drives/DVDs for all the rest.

Barry Wuthrich · 26 Feb 2010

Sounds like you're probably about done, but I had one other thought. When I bought the external drive enclosure, the salesman told me I could just buy a pigtail to connect the HD to the USB port on my laptop. This doesn't even require the HD to be turned on for file access/transfer.

I don't know why that would make any difference, but anything is worth a try.

hgernhardtjr · 26 Feb 2010

Your enclosures are different from mine, Barry, and sound like the smaller "pocketable" units that require no external power other than what they receive from the USB port. I use one of them with my notebook when I'm traveling and photoediting on the job.

Mine are the older, larger, desktop kind that require external power and have a switch on them ... yet can be connected by USB, FireWire, or eSata. I tried all three types of connections and no luck ... but, like I said, plug it into another XP machine and everything was open and available for doing anything I wanted to, from copying to editing.

It's just some kind of complex security-paranoid-Micro$oft procedures that make it hard for the common man but easy for the hacker to do whatever they want ... though you would think they would make it simple. Aren't computers supposed to do that? Make our jobs simpler and automated?

Nahhh ... and they make the OS a true nag, nag, nag product also, ala Vista. Nags you about everything!!! At least Win7 has cut the nagging down to a manageable level!!!