Transferring from external drive

I was just given a Dell Inspiron N7110 laptop from a friend and am trying to move some files from my Seagate FreeAgent external hard drive to this laptop. I get a pop-up saying "you don't currently have permission to access this folder". I have tried to open sharing but it won't let me; any suggestions?
 
Are you currently logged in as an Administrator on the laptop? Some older laptops require admin permissions to move files from an external drive.
 
Hopefully, this is a one-time need as this procedure will reset the NTFS permissions for all users on that HD. It is recoverable, but just more work. Following this is known as Taking Ownership:
  • Boot into Safe Mode
  • Login as Admin
  • mount the external drive (if needed).
  • find the drive letter for that device
  • right click->properties
  • [a] find the Security Tab (notice the list in the upper portion; mine shows, system,authenticated users, administrators(the group name, not the login id) and the group Users.
  • Choice [ you can click Edit to add everyone which is just as effective] Now click Add
  • enter Everyone and click Check Names, click ok
  • in the list you now see Everyone has been added - - select it
  • in the lower portion you see the perms; check the boxes Read&exec, List, Read
  • click Ok
The above will allow any user to access the profile of every other user (ie you loose privacy).

continuing below is the Take Ownership route:
  • at the bottom right, click Advanced
  • here you see the perms for each of the above
  • click on the Owner tab
  • clicking Edit and you can enter any existing user logon known to the system you are using (ie not the original the drive was installed).
  • a good choice is Administrators (that group name)
  • you also need to [x] Replace to propagate this setting
  • for heavens sake, don't exit yet - - backup to [a] and at least add the id System->full control
IF the original system is to be preserved and run with it's original users, you may need to do this again on that system.
 
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