Transfer files from old XP hard drive to new Win7 laptop?

HELP.... need to copy old files to new laptop...

• Put old Win XP laptop hard drive into external USB drive case.

• Plugged into new Win7 laptop via dual USB cables (power and data)

• New laptop recognizes drive A-OK

• New laptop recognizes directory and folder and file structure A-OK

TRY THIS: Drag-and-drop folders from old drive to new laptop

RESULT: New laptop refuses to copy any files... permissions?

HOW to accomplish the porting of all the old files over to the new laptop?

 

How can I fix permissions so I can copy some directories from the old hard drive to the new laptop? Why is this not easy? Win7... your OOBE sucks.



C:\DELL01x>dir

Volume in drive C is Acer
Volume Serial Number is C839-0C4D

Directory of C:\DELL01x

03/07/2010 01:47 PM <DIR> .
03/07/2010 01:47 PM <DIR> ..
0 File(s) 0 bytes
2 Dir(s) 211,768,881,152 bytes free


C:\DELL01x>xcopy e:*.* c: /s/e/f

E:\Documents and Settings\Fred Wolfe\Desktop\09_16_2005_07.jpg -> C:\DELL01x\Des
ktop\09_16_2005_07.jpg

Access denied

C:\DELL01x>

 

about to try this...


http://social.answers.microsoft.com...e/thread/9da312d2-c99b-4283-a275-e74d93dcc366


maybe?

 

That seems to require me to run something on the OLD computer... which no longer exists... the old computer failed...

... have WinXP hard drive from old LAPTOP
... bought new laptop (Win7)

All I want to do is transfer files.

WHY is this so hard?

Suggestions, anyone?

 

Do you mean transferring programs? If so, you need to have the original disks to install them onto XP.

 

This is difficult because the user accounts that have permissions to the files on your WinXP machine do not exist on the Win7 machine. Even if you're using an account with the same name, the Security Identifier (SID) associated with the account won't be the same.

What you need to do is take ownership of the files on the Win7 machine, and THEN you will be able to set permissions in your favour.

I'm looking for instructions on how to do this in Win7, and have only found the steps for WinXP so far. They SHOULD be similar, so I'll post the link while I keep looking, but can't guarantee their accuracy:

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

 

Oh, here we are! It was on the technet site instead of the knowledgebase.

 

This looks promising... thanks for the very good explanation .. it does fit the symptoms .. will try this as soon a I am able.

 

No. Not programs, just need to transfer data files, folders, such as My Docs.

 

Thanks for clarifying that.
Pay no attention to my post. I was operating under a vodka induced haze.:-o:-o

 

I suspect you are going to have trouble trying to do this in Win 7 because you may not find it possible to change the permissions.

A simpler method would be a live boot disk - Ubuntu would be fine. This will circumvent the permissions problem.

 

Why's that? Due to the (probable) version of Win7?

 

No, nothing to do with Win 7 itself, simply that as these files have an existing owner they may only allow permissions to be changed by that owner. It's not that I'm certain about this, but if it turns out to be the case then a Ubuntu live CD will definitely make it possible to copy the files. However, even then Win 7 might not be allowed access to them ......

Be interesting to hear from the OP how this runs.

 

GeoFan, if you are still looking for an answer to this try running cmd.exe in Run as Administrator mode. This is not the same as running it from a user account with admin privileges, it is more akin to Linux' sudo command, giving you access to everything, regardless of preset permissions.

In Vista you type cmd in the Start > Search box, right click cmd.exe and the Run as Administrator option is there. Same in Win 7 I guess.

 

... And then what ...

This whole exercise makes me wonder... how does Microsoft expect to keep any customers? Should we switch to Linux? Macintosh? Or, just forget all about Win7 and go back to Win XP which worked very well, thank you.

1. Friend of a friend had a an old Win XP laptop ... 6 GB of user files ... one user ... only uses EMAIL and some light word processing.

CHECK EMAIL. SAVE FILES. PRINT FILES. UPDATE AND EMAIL FILE ATTACHMENTS... That's all he ever does.

2. Motherboard DIED ...

3. We bought a new laptop (Win7) and an external USB drive case ...

4. We put the old laptop hard drive in a new USB external hard drive case.

5. We wasted most of last weekend trying to copy the old files onto the new Win7 machine.

Please tell me, how can this simple task be accomplished?

We simply want to transfer some old files and folders from the external (NTFS WinXP) hard drive onto the new Win7 Laptop.

Doesn't everyone need to do this whenever an old computer fails and they buy a new computer?

THERE MUST BE SOME WAY TO ACCOMPLISH THIS VERY SIMPLE TASK, WITHOUT BUYING SOME 3rd PARTY SOFTWARE, or going out to get a PhD in Computer Science, yes?

HELP?

I am going back to Fred's and try again on Saturday... I will be very meticulous about following any specific instructions that seem reasonable. Help?

 

Use the command line interface to copy your files, as you posted in #2, and I would still advise having an Ubuntu live CD to hand.

This whole business is usually achieved by using the supplied wizard - goes by a different name in each edition of Windows - but that does require two working machines, which you don't have of course.

 

aha... and the helpful suggestions from Mada_Milty if needed... thanks!

 

I recently used this technique to retreive hundreds of photos and other user files from a latop (Win XP) that would not boot to Windows and could not be restored from the recovery partiton, even though the hard drive seemed to be OK. The computer belonged to someone else, not me. I copied the files to a flash drive while running Ubuntu from the DVD drive on the laptop, then took the flash drive to my laptop and burned all the files (2.1GB) to a DVD disc which I gave the owner when he picked up his computer.

I did view the files on my laptop with Windows Vista. I can't say for sure whether they could be viewed with Windows 7.

GeoFan, if you're not familiar with Linux Ubuntu, the key point in using it this way is that it can be run from a CD or DVD drive; it does not need to be installed on the hard drive to run.