Our old computer died as a result of a thunder storm, with surge protector in use. The computer was 5 years old so rather than try and fix it we purchased a computer. I took the hard drive out of the old computer so we would not lose our files. The old computer ran on XP the new one runs on Win 7. Files that were saved to one of the user accounts require a administrative security change before I can open them. It appears that I need to do this to every file one by one and there are hundres. Is there any easier way to change the security so the changes is inherited by all the files? In addition is there a procedure and I use to make the changes. I've been just "trying" settings and some time it works then I probably miss a step and it doesn't.

You want to take ownership of the files so that you can open them. There is a command you can use called "takeown" if you run it as takeown <filename> it will allow you to take ownership of the file you specify. so if its a whole drive just do takeown <drive>:/*. There's also a powershell method, but that's the simpliest I believe.

Hi, To take the ownership of the whole drive, I suggest you refer to the following article. Although the article instructs how to take ownership of files or folders in Windows XP, you can use the similar way to take ownership of the entire drive in Windows 7. How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us Thanks, Novak