Need help retrieving files from HD.

[eskimochaos]

Good evening,

My sister had a ThinkPad and the motherboard decided to kill itself. She had a normal Windows XP login and password.

I tried dragging and dropping files from a SATA to USB adapter onto my computer; however, it's giving me an administrator error. It says I need to assign myself privileges. I've tried everything I know how to do yet it still is not working - even using the ThinkVantage boot utility.

What am I missing?

 

[I.M.O.G.]

This is a permissions error. If you have administrative rights on the PC you are on, you can fix this by taking ownership of the files through the security settings under properties on the file.

I would do this on the folder containing all the files you've copied off, and set the permissions/ownership to apply to all folders/files within.

Properties>Security>advanced then go to the owner tab and take ownership. You may also need to change settings under the properties>security>advanced permissions tab.

 

[eskimochaos]

This is a permissions error. If you have administrative rights on the PC you are on, you can fix this by taking ownership of the files through the security settings under properties on the file.

I would do this on the folder containing all the files you've copied off, and set the permissions/ownership to apply to all folders/files within.

That sounds about right, it won't even let me move them, though. I tried setting myself as the admin but it still doesn't work. Granted, I gave it about 1 min of my time.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Do it before you move them, from the folder that contains the files. I also updated my last post with more specific instructions for setting permissions and taking ownership.

 

[eskimochaos]

TYVM. I will report back tomorrow.

 

[I.M.O.G.]

If you have to go somewhere to get to the PC, I would burn a linux liveCD first just in case you still have problems.

Like overclockix: http://overclockix.com/

If you still have problems getting the files copied, boot to the linux livecd, and it shouldn't give a crap about the permissions so you can at least get the files copied.

 

[eskimochaos]

If you have to go somewhere to get to the PC, I would burn a linux liveCD first. Like overclockix: http://overclockix.com/

If you still have problems getting the files copied, boot to the linux livecd, and it shouldn't give a crap about the permissions so you can at least get the files copied.

Flying home with my trusty ThinkPad so I'll be able to do this at home if necessary.

Thanks again!

 

[I.M.O.G.]

No problem. Just report back if it works or not. I think that should be it.

 

[NoMonitor]

Worst case scenario, you can boot into DoS on your computer with her HDD attached and use XCOPY to move the directory you want onto your drive.

D:\ is the source drive (her HDD)
C:\STORAGE\ will be the destination folder on your drive to copy everything to...

XCOPY D:\ C:\STORAGE\ /e /c /I /h /k

Note that C:\STORAGE\ may be hidden after a transfer through DoS, so you will need to manually type the directory name into your explorer window to bring it up, or change your options to show all hidden files.


Thought this might help!

 

[I.M.O.G.]

Nice post!

 

[eskimochaos]

Got it. Thank you for all your help.

Turns out I needed to change it to "ThinkPad Administrators" as the owner and not my actual "name".