Can't copy anything from My Documents folder on older hard drive.

  • Thread starter Thread starter Jeff Ingram
  • Start date Start date
J

Jeff Ingram

Hello,

My old Windows XP PC died months ago (motherboard problems) and so I took
out the hard drive (which still functions fine) and put it in my new PC, but
I can't seem to copy any of my files in the My Documents folder from the old
drive to my newer larger drive. I've had this drive in here for the last
several months and have had no problems writing other files to this 'older'
drive (250 gig Maxtor 16mb cache, 7,200RPM drive (btw it's only a year
old), but when I try to copy files to another drive

I get the following error message:

"You'll need to provide administrator permission to copy to this file."

This only happens with files that are in the My Documents folder. My
current login has administrator rights, so I'm thinking some how this has
something to do with this drive being from a different computer's
installation of XP.

How can I fix this so I can copy/backup my files in the My Documents folder?

Thanks,

Jeff
 
Hi Jeff,

It has to do with folder permissions. It is currently "owned" by the user
account on the XP machine. Right click the folder, choose properties. Click
on the security tab, then on advanced. Go to the ownership tab and click
edit. Locate your current account name or type it in and select it. Check
the box to allow this to propagate to all subfolders and containers, then
click apply/ok. It may take some time to run through, but afterwards you
will be able to access the folder and the files in it.

--
Best of Luck,

Rick Rogers, aka "Nutcase" - Microsoft MVP

Windows help - www.rickrogers.org
My thoughts http://rick-mvp.blogspot.com
 
"You'll need to provide administrator permission to copy to this file."

This only happens with files that are in the My Documents folder. My
current login has administrator rights, so I'm thinking some how this has
something to do with this drive being from a different computer's
installation of XP.

How can I fix this so I can copy/backup my files in the My Documents folder?
Click to expand...

Is i possible that the folders are encrypted ? I believe this is an
option presented to those who setup a password on their account after
the OS is installed. I had mny brother boot his system to a copy of
Knoppix and move the files off onto a USB drive. He had quie a few so
I haven't heard if he was able to access them as file access
permissions often follow the files.

You might try this first.

http://www.tech-recipes.com/rx/2204/vista_how_to_take_ownership_system_file

JD
 
Thanks, guys! Surprised I didn't think to look there first! It's working
like a charm!

Jeff
 
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