Permissions errors with replacing laptop HDD

[Dannar26]

My best attempt at summary:

1) windows 10 (64 bit) laptop with HDD
2) take out HDD put into enclosure
3) Errors accessing data on wife's win10 desktop (64bit)
4) errors accessing data on my win 10 desktop (64bit)
5) put HDD back into system, it works
6) take off user password and reboot
7) errors on laptop; can't use files or start menu.

Details:

A moment of your time gents...

I took out my Asus F555L's HDD and put it into an external enclosure. System was working fine before this. The sole user account was password protected, so when I put into the enclosure and attempted to access the files, it told me I didn't have access.

"You currently don't currently have permission to access this folder. Click continue to permanently gain access to this folder." I clicked continue...and what happened next was a giant cluster. The drive kept popping up in a new window on the system, and when I finally got it to settle down, it said it was going to take 3 days to transfer a few gigs of data. It actually didn't really transfer anything.

I tried it on my computer (another win 10 home desktop), and was prompted with the same BS (minus the windows explorer windows popping up). This time I tried to use the windows fix for gaining permissions by flagging the folder as being available to everyone. The error I got with that was: "An error occurred while applying security information to: <insert file path here>. Failure to enumerate objects in the container. Access is denied."

So at that point I decided, well, maybe it's the password on the windows profile that is somehow carrying over and giving me grief. I pop the HDD back into the system, and at first, it seems like everything is OK. I go into the user account settings and take off the password. I reboot.

After that reboot the desktop doesn't load up the background....the desktop icons are still there, but I can't load anything up when I double click: "The application cannot be started. An internal error has occurred." The windows key wont work...I can't get into the start menu. The links on the task bar are generic file images and don't load. I can start a task manager or sign out....but it's like anything having to do with this profile is locked out.

I'm thinking I can count out a physical layer error...It worked until I removed the PW, and if the HDD wasn't connected properly, then the system wouldn't boot or load windows.

I wonder where I can go from here? The wife has some photos on this thing I'm trying to pull off...after that I don't really care about data, and would be just as happy giving it a reformat. The intent is that after the pictures are backed up, that I replace the HDD with a SSD. I was hoping to do this with cloning software so I don't have to worry about reinstalling the OS. And it would be a PITA to use the default image and go through de-bloating it once more.

Thoughts?

 

[VirtualLarry]

Thoughts?

Yeah. Use a Linux "live" bootable medium to copy the files off of that drive onto a USB stick or another external HDD. Linux ignores NTFS permissions.

PS. The user password on the account had nothing to do with your issues.

 

[Ketchup]

A couple ideas if you don't want to play with another OS.

Will it let you get to a command prompt? If so, run sfc /scannow. If it won't let you into command mode, try this: (this is an MS recommendation for Windows 10):
Select the Start button, then choose Settings.
Select Update & security > Recovery.
Under Advanced startup select Restart now.
After your PC restarts to the Choose an option screen, select Troubleshoot > Advanced options > Startup Settings > Restart.
After your PC restarts, select a startup setting by pressing the corresponding number.

Another option is to create a new user, set as administrator level, no password. If it lets you into everything, delete the old account and try the copy again.

For the copy (clone), I would recommend putting the new hard drive into the enclosure, leaving the original drive in the laptop.

What program are you using? Todo Backup almost always does well for me (I say almost because the latest version gave me some problems about a month ago, but an older version did fine).

 

[Dannar26]

So let me ask this then...

If you take the boot drive out of one system, and throw it into another system in an internal enclosure, would you be able to effectively treat it as an external drive? I was under the assumption, perhaps mistakenly, that it works that way.

I work in tech support, and I play around with computers fairly frequently. While I'm not saying I'm a master by any stretch of the imagination, I haven't seen something like this happen. It's too weird. Is it possible the enclosure started these issues?

 

[Ketchup]

Yes, but I do want to over-explain (possibly for you, possibly for others reading).

A computer system boots however the BIOS tells it to. For drives, it is based on the port. So generally, if you take your original hard drive off the port, and put a new drive in the same port, it is going to boot off that new drive. This is assuming manual changes in boot order haven't occurred (since it's a laptop, I am assuming it only has one SATA port for a hard drive/SSD anyway).

Since the new drive is now taking care of boot, the system is going to treat the original hard drive as storage, and you can pretty much do with it whatever you want (barring encryptions/restrictions/passwords that were in place before the swap).