File Permissions?

[ffutures]

When I replaced my Windows box earlier this year I kept the hard drive from the old Windows 10 computer on the assumption that I might at some stage need to access some file or use some software that isn't on the new machine. Documents should have been OK because I did copy everything across. But yesterday this actually came up - I needed a document that I couldn't find, put the drive into an external holder, then discovered that I couldn't get into the documents on the hard drive because it's looking for permissions which are long gone. I'm guessing that if I booted from that drive on a suitable machine I'd be able to read it, but that's not likely to happen.

Fortunately I did eventually find the file on my current PC, I'd been looking in the wrong directory with a slightly wrong file name, but I'm now wondering if there is some way to fix this if it happens again and I really do need to open documents. Any suggestions?

Comments

[turol]

Use a Linux live USB stick. It doesn't care about permissions. It should work as long as the filesystem is not encrypted and you're not trying to write files.

[ffutures]

No, no encryption. If Linux can do that I suspect that my Macbook Pro can too, I just didn't think of it. I'll give that a try, if it doesn't work I'll try Linux.

[turol]

I don't use Mac so I wouldn't know. The NTFS-3G software at least seems to be available for Mac Os, not sure about supported versions.

[dormouse1953]

I got a new desktop machine recently but restored everything from backups on an external drive, which I had no trouble reading.

[ffutures]

That's pretty much what I did, I just want to use belt and braces to be extra sure.

[jhall1]

I'm far from being an expert, but I'd have thought that if the program you were using on Windows to try to read the file was being run as Admin you'd be able to read it.

[ffutures]

I was logged in as admin and it was refusing to let me access the documents directory on that drive at all, unfortunately.

Still haven't tried to read it with my mac since I've been very busy, but that's the next thing I'll try. The other possibility is to boot my windows box off the old drive, but I suspect that it won't be very compatible with my current hardware, the old windows box dated from 2012-ish.