Help! Tech Question

Hello! I haven't digi scrapped in about 2 years, but was a semi-regular at the Lilypad prior to that. I recently got back into scrapbooking during Calvinball this month. However, I have discovered a tech issue with some of the items I had purchased here and at some other places. When I was regularly scrapping I had low performance laptop so I was storing all my kits on an external drive. Unfortunately that laptop bit the bullet and I am on a new PC now. But there are several designers' products that appear to be "locked" and so I am not able to use them. Does anyone know a solution to this? They are on the same external drive, just using them on a different PC now, so I'm struggling to understand why they have become locked. I suspect it has to do with making sure that people aren't sharing the files (with others) once downloaded, but I would really like to be able to use the products I have already paid for. Some of the designers I have noticed this issue with are Just Jamie products (which I had quite a few of), Little Butterfly Wings, Paislee Press, Sara Gleason, and Valorie Wibbens. If anyone could help me, I would really appreciate it. Otherwise half my supply stash has been trashed.

 

Thank you! I'm working on going through the process on the WD page. The external I have is a Seagate but seems to be the same issue. It's just odd to me that only a few designers' products had the issue, so that's why I thought it might be some kind of encryption in their files. I have even (about 6 months when the original laptop died on me) taken this drive to a computer tech to try and get it fixed and he didn't have a clue why he couldn't get it fixed. I'm just frustrated with this issue. Ugh.

 

No, unfortunately it won't let me move them, copy/paste them or open them.

 

So I went through the WD and then the Seagate troubleshooting for this issue with no luck. *Sigh* From what I've found it sounds like Windows 7 & 8 encrypted files on their own (why only part my digi stuff is encrypted is still beyond me), and now that I have a new computer using Win 10 it cannot access those files without having the old computer to grant it permission. So utterly frustrating. Be careful anyone who is not yet on Windows 10 with your digi stuff, apparently backups won't save you

 

I think it will only work on the old computer, since it was "encrypted" on that computer from what I read. I am going to ask my computer tech one more time about it tomorrow, otherwise it looks like I'm out of luck from what I've read. I actually discovered this issue last year at MOC but didn't really want to deal with it then. I'm not sure if my tech still has the old laptop (he tends to hoard things), so I may be in luck there if he does.

 

Thanks for the welcome!

It shows as read only, but it also has a literal lock on the icon. It won't show previews just the general icon with a lock on it. But nothing I have done removes the read only status (even tho all the permissions show as having full control), or the lock status. The odd thing is that the files I had already imported to light room will SOMETIMES open. And any files that I still had zipped (I had a huge downloads folder that hadn't been processed, since I kinda quit suddenly) will unzip and open as normal.

 

Ugh! That makes a lot of sense why only a select group of designers are in that status. Unfortunately, they were some of my favorites Thank you for your help, nonetheless!

 

That seems to be exactly what has happened. They are read only & locked. But nothing I do has been able to resolve it. I have taken it to a tech already once, but he didn't really have any idea how to fix it. He may have the old computer still, so I may try that route tomorrow. Otherwise, I guess I need to go shopping!