[SOLVED] Old Laptop stopped working. Externalized/encased the old laptop HD. Connected to new laptop. Cannot access files.

[HEich]

Hi Everyone,

I hope someone can help me out with this problem.

I encased my old laptop hd (1Tb Seagate HDD SATA) because there were significant problems. I connected the now external hd to my new laptop (via USB C) and changed the permissions on all folders and subfolders to "Everyone". However, I cannot see many of the folders and subfolders, (Documents or Desktop, for example) via explorer. I have already checked off "View: Hidden Items" in explorer. I have checked Disk Management, and it seems like the drive is parititioned into primary, EFI, and OEM. All are "Healthy".

Using the command prompt, I made a text file of all folders on the drive (tree /f etc.), and I can see the missing folders there. However, when I try to view the folders via the command prompt using dir command, many of the folders that are in the text file do not appear. "Volume in drive E has no label." When I try to change the directory via cd command to a folder I know should be there, "The system cannot find the path specified".

Do you have any suggestions on how to access the folders?

Thank you.

H

Note: Curiously, when I make the text file of all folders sub to "Documents", nothing is listed, even though they are listed when I make command tree/f one folder closer to the root. Perplexing.

 

[Grobe]

Well, I'm not sitting on a Windows machine right now, but I do have some information:

• In windows world, the user named "User1" may not be the user "User1". This happens when you move files by an external drive and attach this to another computer (home computers, not in domain). So it means that if on computer1, the "User1" made up some files onto the portable disk, "User1" on computer2 won't have ownership of the files - because the users doesn't have the same ID.
• You need to take ownership of the files on the portable disk. Look up on the web how to do that, but the important part is to select the recursive option / make all subfolders inherit the permission settings.

 

[HEich]

Thank you for your reply. I previously changed the permissions of the Documents folder to "EVERYONE", but I can't change the permissions of the root of the drive itself. - it pauses on a seemingly random windows file and then the drive basically disconnects. The drive disconnects whenever I try to move lots of files, etc.

 

[Grobe]

Ah - there is some HDD adapters on the marked that is really crappy. What model do you have?

At work I had one (don't remember its brand name now) that worked seemingly well, but attempts to format drives (the method that writes random data to dhe drive) never succeded.

 

[HEich]

Ah - there is some HDD adapters on the marked that is really crappy. What model do you have?

At work I had one (don't remember its brand name now) that worked seemingly well, but attempts to format drives (the method that writes random data to dhe drive) never succeded.

I bought an ORICO:
https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B01N48791I