Windows 7 died, need to access files through Mac OS

[Ontopic]

I run an iMac with Windows 7 OEM installed and everything has been working fine for about a year now. Yesterday, however, my iMac suddenly shut itself down. After turning it back on I only see a black screen with a blinking cursor. I did find quite a lot of topics about this, but in my case this screen stays on forever. When I try to reboot with the Windows DVD in the driver my iMac spits it out after ~30 seconds.

I have given up trying to fix Windows, but I would like to get the files on my Windows partition back. I already discovered I can open the files on said partition through Mac OS, but I can't edit, move, delete or copy them. Ideally I would like to copy all my files to an external hard drive and then run a clean install. How do I accomplish this?

 

[ayeying]

OS X has Read-Only, which means you can open and copy them but not edit and save them.

I move files all the time between the NTFS to the Mac side and never had a problem.

 

[Ontopic]

Hmm, I can't move files from my Windows partition to my external hard drive. Maybe I should change the permission of the files?

 

[simsaladimbamba]

Have you checked Finder > select external HDD (and internal Windows 7 partition) >> GET INFO >>> Format and Sharing & Permissions yet?

 

[balamw]

Is the external also formatted NTFS?

B