Removing files from old hard drive

needaspirin

Don't scare me! I've bought lots of Maxtors recently!

Labman_2

Doesn't matter the brand name...from experience...back up....back up...backup & er...back up!

albertross_2

I think they are all a bit ropey nowadays, partly because of the density on the disk, and partly because of the price.

Seen a few newish Maxtors go within the first couple of years, which is unusual, most disks last much longer than that. Similar story with the Travelstars, but the numbers are much higher.

Heard lot's of stories about external drives failing, but don't know if that's the drives themselves or the electronics/firmware.

As Labman says, always backup..

november

jrrowleyws wrote:

Thats how windows works, if you have multiple user accounts or one with a password it locks down the Documents and Settings folders. If I remember correctly Linux can get around this issue, or failing that you should still be able to boot into safe mode using the old hard disk as the master on the new pc and recover your documents.

Yes Linux did get round the issue using Konotix but the copy of Konotix I had wouldn't let me save any files as it had everything as read only including the flash drive.

backbiter wrote:

Had exactly this problem back in early Sept 06. Asked the same question on here and got some great help. Took a while but got there in the end! I think it's all to do with 'taking ownership' of the drive. I'll try and find the thread and post the link.

Here you go:

http://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/....html?t=258963

Thanks for the link. I tried that but it said I couldn't share as 'access is denied'.

I did wonder if its something to do with the particular computers. Both were passworded. I tried changing the password on the new one to the same as the old one but it wasn't falling for that either.

I don't think it is a total hard drive failure. Its a Seagate and running the Seagate checker tools pronounced it fine.

november

Update ....... done it

I hadn't realised Konotix was reading my flash drive as a hard drive and therefore had it on 'read only' Once I found the box to uncross the copying could begin.

All files were there and all are now safe

Thanks once again to all who gave advice. Kept me going until I found a solution :T

I'm going to buy an external hard drive for easier back up now I've realised quite how many small flash drives it would take to back up now I have photos on there as well.