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Hard Drive Cady - Problem with Permissions

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by karendavies32841

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Hello, can anyone help?!
My old laptop no longer works so my hard drive was removed and put on a cady with a usb point. The techs at the computer shop said all I need to do was plug it in and the files could be accessed. Not so easy! To log in to the old computer I put in a username and password. The old computer had Windows XP. The new computer has Windows Vista. Also with this computer I enter a username and password (different to that of the old computer). When I go to access the folders and files in the external hard drive it says I don't have permission to access them. Can anyone step me through this as I am not the best with computers...

6 replies

by oh smeg

By following thew directions here.

http://tinyurl.com/3aw7

Now for the not so great news if you had XP Pro you may have had Windows Encrypted File System running if that is the case your data will be encrypted and you will not be able to do anything about it with a Vista Load as the Encryption System is different. You will need an XP Pro computer to unencrypt the files by following the directions here to save the Encryption Key

http://tinyurl.com/3cd8hf

Please Note this only applies to XP Pro if you had XP Home or MCE installed it doesn't apply.

Col

by karendavies32841

Thank you Col for your quick post. The article speaks in plain English and is easy to follow. Fortunately it was XP Home. As soon as I get home from work I will endeavour to apply the instructions. Til then I am crossing my fingers this will work and I don't stuff it up!

by oh smeg

As you don't have to worry about any Encryption you will find it very easy to recover your data. Just don't forget to pickup your Address Book and E-Mail which are in hidden folders in the My Documents & Settings Folder under the account name that you where using.

Col

by karendavies32841

A big thank you to you Col for helping me with this. I followed the steps and now have full access to all my data. I was getting worried that I could have lost a years worth of work! So thank you for the time in explaining things to me, I really appreciate it.
- Karen

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