NEED HELP WITH WIN10 and WIN7 HARD DRIVE PROBLEM

[MTRADER6]

1. I took a WIN7 hard drive out of my wife's computer that died.

2. I put it into a new WIN10 laptop as a second drive with the purpose to try and get the data into this new WIN10 computer.

3. It gets recognized and is listed as F drive

4. Problem is none of the data, pics, docs, etc. show up.

How can I get her old stuff off the WIN7 drive onto her new WIN10 hard drive?

Thanks.

 

[Math Geek]

look in disk management and see if the drive needs to be set to active. it should do it automatically but sometimes i may not.

if that does not work, then likely the drive has issues preventing you from getting to the data. i do this same thing almost daily and rarely have an issue unless the drive itself is messed up. maybe 3-4 times in literally hundreds of times doing it have i had to manually activate the drive, but it has happened.

 

[MTRADER6]

look in disk management and see if the drive needs to be set to active. it should do it automatically but sometimes i may not.

if that does not work, then likely the drive has issues preventing you from getting to the data. i do this same thing almost daily and rarely have an issue unless the drive itself is messed up. maybe 3-4 times in literally hundreds of times doing it have i had to manually activate the drive, but it has happened.

If I go settings, system, storage, OS (F) shows up with disk 151GB used out of 682 GB. when I click on that is shows all the content broken down. also diskmgmt shows the drive.

 

[Math Geek]

does it show the drive as "healthy"? if you right click the drive it has an option to "set partition as active"

try that and see if it will let you access the drive. right click the drive and select properties and under the tools tab tell it to check the drive for errors. it should give you an idea if there are any problems it is finding with the drive. if the drive itself is messed up, then you may not be able to get to the data.

 

[MTRADER6]

does it show the drive as "healthy"? if you right click the drive it has an option to "set partition as active"

try that and see if it will let you access the drive. right click the drive and select properties and under the tools tab tell it to check the drive for errors. it should give you an idea if there are any problems it is finding with the drive. if the drive itself is messed up, then you may not be able to get to the data.

Drive is healthy and no errors at all. Makes no sense to me. It came out of a late model high end Dell that was working fine until the MB crashed. It all shows up like it should on the new computer. Just when I try to pick a folder to put it on the desktop to get it over to the new drive the content is not there. I only need to get her docs and photos mainly. Thought it would be simple. Just pug the HD in and copy paste what I need. Reformat the old drive to WIN10 and use it for storage.

 

[Math Geek]

hhhhhmmmmm, your right, it should just be good to go now. not sure what the problem may be if it is healthy and error free.

win 7 added in that weird "ownership" property of files, folder and even whole drives. is that still in win 10? if you right click it from windows explorer does it give the option to "take ownership"? might need to be done like it often had to be done with win 7

here is a tutorial for how to add that to the right click menu if it is not there now https://www.tenforums.com/tutorials/3841-take-ownership-add-context-menu-windows-10-a.html

 

[MTRADER6]

No it isn't in WIN10 that I could find. I installed yours and tried it on one file. It showed it worked as it's supposed to but nothing shows up still. I had a thought is this maybe some kind or permissions of sharing issue? This hard drive was already on the same home network but I don't know. I just can't figure this simple problem out. I understand the OS is different but you should still be able to manually grab the files.

 

[Math Geek]

yah i agree fully. this is something that i do all the time so i know it works.

why it's not working for you i don't know. permissions may be the issue but the take ownership fix was supposed to fix that as well. i'll keep my mind going on this but for now i am not sure what is going on. i'll send out an SOS and see if anyone else may have some thoughts. i'll post back if i have any more ideas.

 

[MTRADER6]

yah i agree fully. this is something that i do all the time so i know it works.

why it's not working for you i don't know. permissions may be the issue but the take ownership fix was supposed to fix that as well. i'll keep my mind going on this but for now i am not sure what is going on. i'll send out an SOS and see if anyone else may have some thoughts. i'll post back if i have any more ideas.

Great and I appreciate your help very much. I figured that's what the take ownership would do basically override any block to access the files. I am stumped as well. Well I'll be working on it some more over the weekend and see if I can stumble on fix.

 

[Vic 40]

Maybe recuva sees the files as they should be?
http://www.filehippo.com/download_recuva

 

[James Mason]

Is it encrypted with Bitlocker?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732774(v=ws.11).aspx

Did she have Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise? like was it a work laptop?

If so the drive data is most likely permanently encrypted/lost unless you could fix the old laptop, but even if you did, bitlocker would detect a hardware change and then ask for a recovery key, which if you didn't save previously when setting up bitlocker, means there is no way to access the files.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/keep-secure/bitlocker-frequently-asked-questions

 

[MTRADER6]

Is it encrypted with Bitlocker?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732774(v=ws.11).aspx

Did she have Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise? like was it a work laptop?

If so the drive data is most likely permanently encrypted/lost unless you could fix the old laptop, but even if you did, bitlocker would detect a hardware change and then ask for a recovery key, which if you didn't save previously when setting up bitlocker, means there is no way to access the files.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/keep-secure/bitlocker-frequently-asked-questions

It was Win7 professional. Is there a way to tell now for sure if the data is irretrievable? I was able to grab her favorites. docs and pics not yet.

 

[James Mason]

Is it encrypted with Bitlocker?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732774(v=ws.11).aspx

Did she have Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise? like was it a work laptop?

If so the drive data is most likely permanently encrypted/lost unless you could fix the old laptop, but even if you did, bitlocker would detect a hardware change and then ask for a recovery key, which if you didn't save previously when setting up bitlocker, means there is no way to access the files.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/keep-secure/bitlocker-frequently-asked-questions

It was Win7 professional. Is there a way to tell now for sure if the data is irretrievable? I was able to grab her favorites. docs and pics not yet.

Well.... If the data is encrypted, it's irretrievable unless hooked up the old system or you have the bitlocker recovery key saved somewhere. There's no way to retrieve the data without the recovery key though.

If you have access to another Professional or Enterprise version of Windows 7/8/10 you can check to see if the drive is encrypted with bitlocker, as hooking it up to those OSs will give a popup saying "hey this drive is encrypted, give me the recovery key if you want to access it."

Also again, fixing the old laptop may be a worthwhile solution (it may not even be that broken) if your data is important enough to you. Otherwise it's time to move on with your life.

There are also data recovery companies who can get the data off a bad hard drive (which it may be) but you'll have to fork out a very significant amount of money (I'd estimate $1000+) because there is forensics software out that than pull all the data off a hard drive bit by bit to make it scannable/searchable even for deleted data.

 

[MTRADER6]

Is it encrypted with Bitlocker?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732774(v=ws.11).aspx

Did she have Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise? like was it a work laptop?

If so the drive data is most likely permanently encrypted/lost unless you could fix the old laptop, but even if you did, bitlocker would detect a hardware change and then ask for a recovery key, which if you didn't save previously when setting up bitlocker, means there is no way to access the files.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/keep-secure/bitlocker-frequently-asked-questions

It was Win7 professional. Is there a way to tell now for sure if the data is irretrievable? I was able to grab her favorites. docs and pics not yet.

Well.... If the data is encrypted, it's irretrievable unless hooked up the old system or you have the bitlocker recovery key saved somewhere. There's no way to retrieve the data without the recovery key though.

If you have access to another Professional or Enterprise version of Windows 7/8/10 you can check to see if the drive is encrypted with bitlocker, as hooking it up to those OSs will give a popup saying "hey this drive is encrypted, give me the recovery key if you want to access it."

Also again, fixing the old laptop may be a worthwhile solution (it may not even be that broken) if your data is important enough to you. Otherwise it's time to move on with your life.

There are also data recovery companies who can get the data off a bad hard drive (which it may be) but you'll have to fork out a very significant amount of money (I'd estimate $1000+) because there is forensics software out that than pull all the data off a hard drive bit by bit to make it scannable/searchable even for deleted data.

Well, I don't have another win7 pro machine to test it on so that's out. Fixing it is out because it's, well a long story.... so I guess it's move on as you suggest. She has her little Acer for Xmas (where I put the old drive in the first place) so she's happy and her data well it is what it is.

One last question: can I reformat the drive with the new laptop and use it as a backup or will the win7 pro screw that up also?

And...thank you very much for all your efforts and time. It is very much appreciated. Have a Happy New Year!

 

[James Mason]

Is it encrypted with Bitlocker?
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc732774(v=ws.11).aspx

Did she have Windows 7 Professional or Enterprise? like was it a work laptop?

If so the drive data is most likely permanently encrypted/lost unless you could fix the old laptop, but even if you did, bitlocker would detect a hardware change and then ask for a recovery key, which if you didn't save previously when setting up bitlocker, means there is no way to access the files.
https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/itpro/windows/keep-secure/bitlocker-frequently-asked-questions

It was Win7 professional. Is there a way to tell now for sure if the data is irretrievable? I was able to grab her favorites. docs and pics not yet.

Well.... If the data is encrypted, it's irretrievable unless hooked up the old system or you have the bitlocker recovery key saved somewhere. There's no way to retrieve the data without the recovery key though.

If you have access to another Professional or Enterprise version of Windows 7/8/10 you can check to see if the drive is encrypted with bitlocker, as hooking it up to those OSs will give a popup saying "hey this drive is encrypted, give me the recovery key if you want to access it."

Also again, fixing the old laptop may be a worthwhile solution (it may not even be that broken) if your data is important enough to you. Otherwise it's time to move on with your life.

There are also data recovery companies who can get the data off a bad hard drive (which it may be) but you'll have to fork out a very significant amount of money (I'd estimate $1000+) because there is forensics software out that than pull all the data off a hard drive bit by bit to make it scannable/searchable even for deleted data.

Well, I don't have another win7 pro machine to test it on so that's out. Fixing it is out because it's, well a long story.... so I guess it's move on as you suggest. She has her little Acer for Xmas (where I put the old drive in the first place) so she's happy and her data well it is what it is.

One last question: can I reformat the drive with the new laptop and use it as a backup or will the win7 pro screw that up also?

And...thank you very much for all your efforts and time. It is very much appreciated. Have a Happy New Year!

Yes, you can reformat it so you can use it again to store any new data you want.