can't access files moved from Windows XP system HDD that died


  1. Posts : 2
    Windows 10 Pro 64bit 1903
       #1

    can't access files moved from Windows XP system HDD that died


    I recently lost a Dell Windows XP 64bit laptop to a dead motherboard; however, my hard drive was fine and the computer was 8 years old, so rather than replacing a laptop motherboard (and possibly other components), I upgraded to an HP Spectre X360 15 laptop with Windows 10 Pro. My problem arose when I tried moving files from my old hard drive to my new computer, and I noticed upon loading up my old iTunes Library that certain songs weren't playing. Went to the File Explorer and saw that there was no detailed information (Artist, Title, Year, etc. - see screenshot below) for these files despite that information existing on the old hard drive. I'm thinking I need to take ownership of some directories and allow full access permissions, but I don't know that this is the definite solution to my problem, so I came here first looking for some guidance. If someone could help me figure this out, I would greatly appreciate it.

    can't access files moved from Windows XP system HDD that died-windows-10-music-ownership-permissions.jpg
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 8,363
    windows 10
       #2

    Welcome to the forum. All the files will be owned by the SID on xp so you will need to take ownership of all the folders to access them
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 2
    Windows 10 Pro 64bit 1903
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Problem solved!


    If you run into a similar problem, let me preface this post by saying be sure to read the tutorials below in their entirety before jumping into them, just to be sure you have a good idea about what you're going to be doing.

    Additionally, since some of my music was working (i.e. playing) in iTunes and some wasn't, I decided to test the "Change Permissions" process on one file within one folder before changing attributes on all files, but that's getting a little ahead of myself. I also set up a System Restore Point prior to trying any of this. All that being said, I seem to have solved my problem of being unable to play some of the music files from my Windows XP system hard drive by changing ownership then permissions of my entire music folder via elevated command prompt.

    Okay, for anyone curious as to how exactly I did this, I went to this tutorial first:

    Then, I chose "Option Two: To Change Owner of an Object using TAKEOWN Command" and went down to #4. Since I just wanted to test this on my music folder, I used the following command:

    takeown /F "full path of folder or drive" /R /D Y

    This makes the current user the owner of the folder which path you give, as well as the owner of the subfolders and files in that initial folder. I gave ownership at this point to solely one album folder I was having problems with in my overall music folder.

    Following this, I still couldn't get the music to play, so I tried changing permissions on only one MP3 file using W10 File Explorer (you can see how to do this in the below tutorial), and I could play the song after that! Rather than have to seek out every non-working file and then follow the same process using File Explorer, I decided to go to this tutorial to change permissions for the entire music folder, subfolder, and files.

    Once there, I chose to continue using the elevated command prompt and go with "Option Seven: To Change Permissions for User or Group of File, Folder, or Drive in Command Prompt". Again, because I wanted to change the permissions of the entire music folder, I chose this command:

    icacls "full path of folder" /grant "user or group":(permissions) /t /c

    I picked "(F)" for the permissions, which is "Full", and voila. I could suddenly play all my music again in iTunes.

    I didn't know whether I should have granted myself Administrator permissions (as seen in the table below Option 7 in the Grant Permissions tutorial), so rather than further complicate things, I just went with "Full" permissions for now.

    Hopefully this helps if someone else runs into a similar situation. Thank you to the forum user "Samuria" for confirming my suspicions about file/folder ownership being the problem. (Sorry, I don't know how to tag another user in a post.)
      My Computer


 

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