So, my old laptop (running Windows XP pro) has gone to the gods - its video card cactus.

I have a new PC (also running XP pro) and have just picked myself up a hard drive case for the old HDD in the hopes of grabbing some of my data from it. I'd been pretty religious in storing the data to the /documents and settings/user/mydocuments directory tree.

Anyway, drive is now in the enclosure; everything works well; except that when i'm browsed to /documents and settings/ and try to go into the /documents and settings/user directory, i get an "access denied" message.

I figure this is just the old XP pro security locking me out - which is ok, i know the old user/pass combo... but the question is, *how* do i get into the dir - I can't find nor google any way to enter the user/pass info.... very frustrating!

Any ideas???

is it possible to duplicate the directory or something?

You need to reclaim ownership of that dir by right click the folder - properties/security/advanced/owner

edit: need to disable simple file sharing as well to see this

last edited by Skitza at 14:45:59 24/Sep/06

Convert the drive from ntfs to fat32 to remove ntfs permissions and you can gain full access to everything on the drive.

Awesome, that did the trick!

Thanks Skitza!

^^ how would u plan on doing that?

I usually use a data recovery program like easy recovery or Rstudio to do it however it can also be done by reclaiming the ownership settings but I can never remember how to do it.

You need to reclaim ownership of that dir by right click the folder - properties/security/advanced/owner

Don't you have to boot in safe mode to do that?

no

Uhh the security tab is not available in normal windows mode unless theres some cheaty way I am unaware of...


Only way I know of is to boot to safe mode then right click the folders you need > properties > security tab, change everyone to full access, then in the advanced button or something like that there should be "take ownership of files" and obviously select an account with admin privs. Hit apply and it will go over all the files, reboot then you can access them from your new install.

there's a wiki on this... buggered if I can find the link.


I still prefer the old knoppix method. boot --> find data --> dump where needed

I still prefer the old knoppix method. boot --> find data --> dump where needed

That won't work if it's using Windows user-mode encryption stuff though, surely?

Uhh the security tab is not available in normal windows mode unless theres some cheaty way I am unaware of...

it definitely is!

you definitely don't need to be in safe mode, that's SHEER MADNESS&^@%#

the setting u are after is under tools->folder options->view-> then down the bottom, untick "use simple file sharing". this will giv eu access to security/permissions tabs

Thanks for some actual info grimy, will make that problem a lot quicker to solve in the future.

I had the same problem.
http://qgl.ausforums.com/?agn=thread&id=2385090

Maybe something in there can help