Removing user access permission for folders/subfolders/files

[Chang10is]

My friend's laptop is no longer able to boot, and it appears to be a motherboard issue. She bought a new laptop and would like to transfer her files from the old laptop to the new one. We put the old hard drive into an enclosure and connected it via USB to the new computer, and we can see the contents of the old hard drive. But when we try to copy files and folders from her "My Documents" folder, Windows asks us for user access permission for each individual folder, subfolder, and file. Is there a way to reconfigure the user access permission for all the files at the same time? There are thousands of files that need to be transferred, so I'm trying to figure out the most efficient way to transfer what we need. The old hard drive has Windows XP installed, and the new computer is running Windows 7. Thanks in advance for your help!

 

[tomt4535]

Take ownership of the files and folders. You should be able to do it at the top level directory and check "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," which will go through everything below it and change the ownership. Here's a good explanation of how to do it: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

 

[Chang10is]

Thanks! I'll give this a shot.

 

[Dessert Tears]

If you use a command line program like xxcopy, you can run cmd.exe as administrator, which should elevate that command prompt above the file permissions. I recommend using a specialized copy program and setting it to verify each file.