BleepingComputer.com: New External Hard Drive

As the title says, I have a new external hard drive which is working fine, but when I go into the documents folder it says I do not have permission to view the files.

The hard drive came from a laptop that had water spilled on it and the motherboard fried. I bought an external enclosure for it and put it in. I can go into other folders and look at stuff, but I cannot view things in the documents folder. I have tried on two computers, one running windows xp home, and the other vista ultimate, both give the same message. So can someone help me out and tell me how to get around this? I appreciate any help with this!

Hello,

You will probably find that the my documents folder is still registered to the previous owner, Does it supply you with a specific eror message?

It could be that your computer detects that its a document folder, and it puts protection on it..

I would try accessing it from linux... You're logged on as an admin, aren't you?

You could see if you could change the name of the folder, and/or copy the folder and rename it. I don't see why it won't let you though...

Thanks for the replies! Yes I am Administrator.

This is exactly what happens:

Go into the F drive (which is the external drive) click documents and settings then click Britt (which was the username on the laptop). Then any folder in there I click I receive the message: "You don't currently have permission to access this folder, click continue to get access to this folder" So then I click continue and get this message: "You have been denied permission to access this folder, To gain access to this folder you will need to use the security tab. My only choices are to click the blue "security tab" words or close. So if I go into the security center it tells me the same thing of not having the permission.

I don't understand this because when I put new hard drives in other computers before it usually lets me look at the files. Any other ideas?

EDIT: I tried changing the name too, and it lets me but, still doesn't help any. I have a few live cd's of linux I could boot off and try this out.

Yes I had a similar problem about a year ago, it turned out that my desktop couldnt view a folder, but as soon as the drive went back into the laptop I could view the files, I think its down to windows file protection, to keep peoples documents safe so that only the creator/owner can view them. You will need to disable the protection on the file in question.

Linux might be able to fix it.... but just something that I would try would be to create an account called the same thing, with the same password, and try and access the folder through that, with the same OS. It might work...

The directions for taking ownership of a folder are HERE. You might need to do this in Safe Mode..

Ditto what Wildabeast suggested.

This is not uncommon when moving a drive which had been on another system as a system/boot drive.

Louis

Thank you so much Wildabeast! That worked very well!

Glad that helped, that little page has come in handy for quite a few people I know!

Hi Sterling.. I have got the exact problem that you faced in Sept 2006. Could you please tell me the procedure you followed to gain access to the hard drive connected as an external HD to the visa laptop? I have vista premium running on the laptop and I keep getting the message..you do not have access to the folder

You need to do this as suggested
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Thanks.. I followed the procedure to change ownership of folders..but am still getting the same message
I did the following
1) right click on the folder (which is on the external drive under documents and settings) and clicked properties
2) Clicked the security tab and then Ádvanced tab
3) Then clicked the owner tab and ''edit ''
4) in the change owner to.. i checked my username and checked the ''replace owner on subcontainers and objects''
5) clicked ok and the owner settings were being changed.. after about 10 mins once all was done.. i got a message that i needed to close this and reopen to view change permissions..
BUt when i reopen ..i still get the message.. you do not have permission to view the folder..

I repeated the above process again.. except that in point 4 , i checked the admistrators and clicked OK.. but i get the same message..

I might be doing something trivial wrong.. could you please advise .. thanks very much for the help

Sherkhan29