Question Is it OK to connect a drive that came from one computer to another computer via USB and transfer files?

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Admittedly, I am not very clear on what happened here.

Did you hook up the boot drive from one PC to another via an external "caddy" and then try to boot?

When one PC is up and running, and then you connect a USB drive bay to the PC it should read that the drive is there. The issue you may run into while trying to access the other drive are access restrictions. Basically, that the other drive is known as a bootable drive, and you are trying to access it via another sign in.

For it to be causing issue with the OS on the host box tends to indicate to me that you tried to boot with this bootable drive connected to the host as well (at the same time). Is this not the case?
 
From the link above - the second Step 4:

" I transfer photos from G:/Users/Admin/Pictures on the Western Digtal 1TB HDD to the HP Elitebook 8440p"

How was the transfer done: copy/paste, move, 3rd party app?

And if you did a clean install then Windows 11 is likely back to all default settings and you may have overwritten the Pictures folders.

Precisely what "icacls" commands did you apply and where?

What is the current status of both computers?

Post the full specs and status of each computer

= = = =

Are you able to open Disk Management in both systems?

If so, expand the Disk Management window so all can be seen. Take a screenshot and post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com)

Are the photographs backed up anywhere else?
 
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Grobe said:
Ok, you've already got some answer in the Microsoft forum - can you please elaborate what is it you still haven't get the answer to ?
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Sorry if it wasn't clear, my question is how to fix the two laptops and why it happened and how do I prevent it from happening again
 
Ralston18 said:
From the link above - the second Step 4:

" I transfer photos from G:/Users/Admin/Pictures on the Western Digtal 1TB HDD to the HP Elitebook 8440p"

How was the transfer done: copy/paste, move, 3rd party app?

And if you did a clean install then Windows 11 is likely back to all default settings and you may have overwritten the Pictures folders.

Precisely what "icacls" commands did you apply and where?

What is the current status of both computers?

Post the full specs and status of each computer

= = = =

Are you able to open Disk Management in both systems?

If so, expand the Disk Management window so all can be seen. Take a screenshot and post the screenshots here via imgur (www.imgur.com)

Are the photographs backed up anywhere else?
Click to expand...
The transfer was done by copy, and the icacls command I applied was icacls reset /t /c /l command because that was mentioned on numerous websites as a fix. The current status of Dell Latitude D630 is black screen with cursor on startup and current status of the HP is unable to login, I can only get to the desktop with a temporary account. All my files are still there on the main user account so that's not the problem but windows cannot login

HP:
Intel Core i7 740QM
6GB RAM
NVIDIA NVS 3100M

Dell:
Intel Core 2 Duo T9300
4GB RAM
Intel 965 Express Chipset

I can open the disk management only in the HP system, but I don't want to touch that system because it will break even more
 
punkncat said:
Admittedly, I am not very clear on what happened here.

Did you hook up the boot drive from one PC to another via an external "caddy" and then try to boot?

When one PC is up and running, and then you connect a USB drive bay to the PC it should read that the drive is there. The issue you may run into while trying to access the other drive are access restrictions. Basically, that the other drive is known as a bootable drive, and you are trying to access it via another sign in.

For it to be causing issue with the OS on the host box tends to indicate to me that you tried to boot with this bootable drive connected to the host as well (at the same time). Is this not the case?
Click to expand...
No, I hooked up the boot drive from one PC to another via an external caddy and then copied some files over. Yes it read that the drive is there and I clicked ok/yes to access the pictures folder in the user account.
 
Immediate focus should be on ensuring that your files (pictures) are backed up and verified readable somewhere other than on either of the two PCs involved.

Think before doing anything that may put those files at risk.

= = = =

Regarding:

"I can open the disk management only in the HP system, but I don't want to touch that system because it will break even more".

I agree.

I am not (full disclosure) familar with "icacls" command and much less how those commands may have been applied.

So as to what may or may not have happened with respect to those commands I must defer to others.

Be patient, answer questions, and let the troubleshooting process work out.
 
Ralston18 said:
Immediate focus should be on ensuring that your files (pictures) are backed up and verified readable somewhere other than on either of the two PCs involved.

Think before doing anything that may put those files at risk.

= = = =

Regarding:

"I can open the disk management only in the HP system, but I don't want to touch that system because it will break even more".

I agree.

I am not (full disclosure) familar with "icacls" command and much less how those commands may have been applied.

So as to what may or may not have happened with respect to those commands I must defer to others.

Be patient, answer questions, and let the troubleshooting process work out.
Click to expand...
Yes I wouldn't have run that command if there weren't dozens of tutorials all pointing to that command to fix the problem!! And now it made it even worse!!!
 
You might be at the crossroads of using a third hard drive BUT USE THE DELL and install windows on fresh.

Than hook each drive HP/ Original Dell with the external USB device to that fresh install on the Dell with the "third" drive and save all your personal files. pictures, videos whatever.

Don't be surprised if when you get to the HP drive being in the USB caddy it won't read.

That model HP you have had a weird hard drive to motherboard hand shake kind of like bitlocker but not bitlocker.

If it didn't give you any issues and you were able to get stuff off the HP drive move on and put the drives back into there original laptops and re due windows.

I know it seems like the long way around but might be your only options to save your stuff and get both laptops working again.

Can I ask why a USB thumb drive was not used at the start to move files from one laptop to the other. If it was your videos saying they were to big to move to USB thumb drive all that was needed to do was reformat thumb drive from fat32 to NTSF.
 
Last edited:
Ralston18 said:
Not uncommon.

What specific command ?

What tutorials?

Trusting the internet is becoming a leap in faith for all too many circumstances and solutions.
Click to expand...
https://www.minitool.com/news/reset-all-user-permissions-to-default-windows.html

https://learn.microsoft.com/en-us/a...36/how-to-set-c-drive-with-default-permission

www.makeuseof.com

How to Reset All User Permissions to Default in Windows 11

Go back to a clean slate with these tips for Windows 11.
www.makeuseof.com www.makeuseof.com

winaero.com

Quickly Reset NTFS Permissions in Windows 10

You can reset custom NTFS permissions applied to a file or a folder in Windows 10. After performing this operation, custom access rules will be removed.
winaero.com

A quick google search "how to reset file permissions on drive" and the first four websites all have the icacls command as their first method. In fact one of them is even a Microsoft forum
 
stonecarver said:
You might be at the crossroads of using a third hard drive BUT USE THE DELL and install windows on fresh.

Than hook each drive HP/ Original Dell with the external USB device to that fresh install on the Dell with the "third" drive and save all your personal files. pictures, videos whatever.

Don't be surprised if when you get to the HP drive being in the USB caddy it won't read.

That model HP you have had a weird hard drive to motherboard hand shake kind of like bitlocker but not bitlocker.

If it didn't give you any issues and you were able to get stuff off the HP drive move on and put the drives back into there original laptops and re due windows.

I know it seems like the long way around but might be your only options to save your stuff and get both laptops working again.

Can I ask why a USB thumb drive was not used it the start to move files from on laptop to the other. If it was your videos saying they were to big to move to USB thumb drive all that was needed to do was reformat thumb drive from fat32 to NTSF.
Click to expand...
None of my USB drives are over 64GB (not large enough) and I thought this was safe, it's literally just connecting a hard drive to a computer, and somehow this can destroy the computer!!!
 
Since my HP still boots should I attempt a repair install? The dell is toast I will have to reinstall windows on that once again. I will never transfer files with this method again. I'm also quite disappointed in Windows itself. Doesn't give any warning before executing the command.
 
0wen said:
and I thought this was safe, it's literally just connecting a hard drive to a computer, and somehow this can destroy the computer!!!
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The only computer I ever had issues with doing what you tried is you have that HP laptop in the mix. We had one and like I said that hand shake thing was a real pain in the rear. That's why I suggested using the Dell to save stuff on at this point.

It should have been easy peasy but again that HP lock down that you happen to have with that laptop model..

I still have a 120Gb hard drive I saved just because of the bad experience I had back in 2011 that I have a note to my future self to remember oh yeah that laptop. That drive is locked up tighter than a ................
 
0wen said:
Since my HP still boots should I attempt a repair install? The dell is toast I will have to reinstall windows on that once again. I will never transfer files with this method again. I'm also quite disappointed in Windows itself. Doesn't give any warning before executing the command.
Click to expand...
If you're running `icacls`, you've already dropped into a shell, most likely elevated to administrator privileges. Warnings are for the normal end-user GUI – if you're in a shell, you're expected to know what you're doing. Blindly pasting stuff from the internet can be dangerous!

It's (usually 😉) fine to mess around with the permissions of your data files – but running takeown / icacls recursively on the root of your system drive will land you in a world of trouble.
 
Also this:

"/c: Continues the operation even in the presence of errors."

I, for one, like to know what errors are occurring and have the operation stop accordingly.

Then, decide whether or not to proceed despite the errors.

All the more so if I anticipate doing some real world work versus the fun of sometimes just messing around.

Either way: backups are a must.

As for the HP: look in Reliability History/Monitor and Event Viewer. Either one or both may have captured some error information that may help repair the HP.

No harm in looking. However I would not be optimistic about finding some straight forward solution.....
 
I have good news, the HP is now working once I manually changed the permissions for the user and program files folder to one that matched a healthy computer (I can sign in). Now I just have to focus on fixing the Dell. Even my Chrome tabs were saved!
 
Good news, BOTH of my computers are now fixed now that I manually changed the permissions of the Dell's C: drive, program files and users folder to one that matched a healthy computer.
 
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