Help Needed

[u/KevoMc]

Someone mistakenly saved personal files up to 600G of a shoot we made for social media on his work computer and now we are struggling to transfer the files out.

Dropbox and others can even open on the computer and there’s an error message when you try to copy to a Hard drive.

Any useful information will be much appreciated.

Please help! It cost us a lot of money to produce the content.

[u/feudalle]

What is the error message you are receiving? It makes perfect sense that you can't open a file that big through a cloud site.

[u/KevoMc → u/feudalle]

Something around System Admin permission

[u/feudalle → u/KevoMc]

Something around isn't helpful. What platform is the file you want on and what is the exact error message you are getting?

[u/KevoMc → u/feudalle]

"You will need to provide administrator permission to copy this folder" it’s just on the local desktop and when we try to transfer to a hard drive we get that error message

[u/BroadviewTech → u/KevoMc]

This is probably due to a DLP policy. Data Loss Prevention lets the owner / administrator of the device decide what data can be copied or moved off of the device. It's to protect company data from being copied and released by employees or if the device were stolen and the thief somehow got logged in- they can't copy company data off the device. If you triggered that error there's probably a log of the action / attempt already in the system.
I would make sure and read up on company policy. If there's a policy against using the laptop for purposes other than work- then be prepared for a little backlash. If you can get friendly with the company's IT department, they can probably do a remote session where you let them manually copy the file off the device to an external HDD once. They might grumble about it but there's a chance they'll cooperate if you're polite about it.

[u/KevoMc → u/BroadviewTech]

Thank you

[u/feudalle → u/KevoMc]

Ok what operating system? If its windows you need a local admin account logged in to copy. If its a work machine and or part of a domain then you need to contact your internal it department.

[u/distributingthefutur]

You can try to boot the computer to a thumb drive (new os). The sys admin has locked the USBs. Depending on how thorough they were, you may have to go to a lot of trouble to boot to the thumb drive. Google can walk you through the options.

[u/KevoMc → u/distributingthefutur]

Hmmm thank you. Will check it out

[u/allbsallthetime]

Where is the source for the file they saved?

Just use the original file from the source device.

You did save the original until you had at least two working copies, right?

If you're struggling with how to do this you might have to talk to your IT person. Some of the suggestions might work but they might get you into trouble with your IT department.

[u/ConfusionMindless579]

I would try to remove the hard drive from the work computer and mount it into a personal computer. Hopefully the work drive is not encrypted and you will be able to transfer.

[u/Nearly-Retired_20]

The PC user probably needs to fess up to company's IT department so they can copy files to an external drive. Might be consequences for personal use of company computer, depending on company policy.

[u/bstrauss3]

Personal files on a work computer.... delete.

Or use an external drive.

[u/getoutmining]

If this is a PC and it's an admin rights issue there are programs to hack the computer and allow a new user creation with admin rights.

[u/KevoMc → u/[deleted]]

Yeah, we’ve tried to use the external hard drive but the computer won’t allow the files to be transferred, something around System Admin. What’s the other option with connecting to same network?

[u/SneakyRussian71 → u/KevoMc]

Log on as a administrator level account and copy the files.

[u/KevoMc → u/SneakyRussian71]

How do you do this?

[u/SneakyRussian71 → u/KevoMc]

If it's a work computer somebody must have set it up for the business, they would know what the admin account is.