Another Win7 mystery?

[Boomyal]

I took the hardrive out of Mrs Boomyal's defunct Dell XP laptop. I plugged it into my main XP PC, using the USB adaptor, and I can see/read all folders and files.

I then plugged it into Mrs B's new Dell Win7 laptop so she could get all the goodies off of it that she wants. Win7 registers the drive and shows the whole panoply of directories.

I open up Documents and Settings and find the folder that has her pictures in it. When I click on that folder, I get a message that says I do not have authorization to access that folder: click here to get permission. I click on the button and the bar at the top begins to scroll and the mouse curser turns into a little blue circle. Nothing happens. It just sits there and never does anything. There were never any password requirements set up on this laptop.

There are no such issues when opening up this folder when attached to the XP PC.

One other interesting/baffling/maddening note. When I click on 'remove attached devices' the F drive shows up but is greyed out so you cannot click it to disconnect the harddrive.

I wish Microsoft had a good forum that was habituated by people who designed this monstrosity. But until they have one or until I find it, I'll just have to continue to spew my displeasure on all you poor folks.

Any suggestions would be appreciated.

I also hope that everyone had a scrumpteous Thanksgiving.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

R-Studio

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

R-Studio

Thanks j martin but I do not think that is the solution here. The old laptop harddrive is infinitely readable when slaved to an XP machine. This appears to be a Win7/XP issue.

 

[j_martin]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

Thanks j martin but I do not think that is the solution here. The old laptop harddrive is infinitely readable when slaved to an XP machine. This appears to be a Win7/XP issue.

Just for kicks, try just hitting the enter key (null password) Then try "password"

Otherwise, easiest quickest fix would be to hang it on an XP machine and shuttle the data to the Win7 machine with a thumb drive, or across a lan.

 

[Bifflefan]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

You may have to "right click" and click "run as administrator". Instead of doing the permission thing.
I dont know much about dell, but what I do know is they can be a pain.
There are alot of hard ways to do it also, but the easiest may be just to get a USB thumb drive and copy them to it on the one that works, then copy them to the Dell.

 

[dolluper]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

I think you should add a administrator password ...you are running the drive on usb right so you probably have to stop the devise first....should show as green arrow in taskbar ...click it and stop first then remove

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

.....you probably have to stop the devise first....should show as green arrow in taskbar ...click it and stop first then remove

That is one of the issues. When the drive is plugged into the USB port, when you click on the 'green arrow', the drive shows up there but it is greyed out (inactive) So the only way to safely disconnect it is to shut down the computer, then unplug it.

 

[PiratePast40]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

A couple of WAGs here:
1) Does the external drive need to be initialized or marked as active?
2) Perhaps Win7 only sees it as a virtual drive and needs for it to be mapped before it's readable!

I really don't know it any of these are the solution - just some ideas.

 

[Boomyal]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

A couple of WAGs here:
1) Does the external drive need to be initialized or marked as active?
2) Perhaps Win7 only sees it as a virtual drive and needs for it to be mapped before it's readable!

I really don't know it any of these are the solution - just some ideas.

I don't know about any of these issues PiratePast. Win 7 sees all the directories, flolders and sub-folders. They just can't be opened to see the individual files. This all is not an issue when hooked up to an XP machine. Everything is openable just like it was on the C: Drive.

 

[tx1961whaler]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

I think that the problem is that Win7 is having a hard time with the drive letters. You are taking an "old drive c:" and putting it on a system that already has a drive C: on it. Sometimes that causes an issue with some externals and USB thumb drives.
Go to the disk management tools (Control Panel--> Administrative Tools --> Computer Management --> Disk Management, and scroll down the list of drives and find the external drive. Give it a drive letter, like g: , and see if it works.
DANGER ! BE CAREFUL. Mess up in disk manager and yer life could get messy...

 

[i386]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

Give this a read Boom...

http://www.preyerplanning.com/take-ownership-of-entire-hard-drive-in-windows-7.pdf

 

[NYBo]

Re: Another Win7 mystery?

I bet the UAC window for allowing the operation is getting hidden under the Explorer window. Use ALT-TAB to see if you can get it to come up.