can't boot XP home into safe mode

[Brad Pears]

I am caught in a catch 22. One of our users had problems with his personal
laptop and now cannot access a directory he has tons of work related data
in. Even though he is an "administrator" he gets an "access denied" error.

When researching the issue, I discovered that you can boot into safe mode to
acess the "security" tab to take ownership of the directory/file - which
would resolve the problem. However, this machine locks up when attempting to
boot into safe mode - so I can't get a celan "safe" boot!!!

Question...

1) Is there an alternative method of taking ownership of files if one can't
boot into safe mode in XP Home?

2) How could one go about resolving the "unable to boot into safe mode"
issue? As it boots up, it shows you all the drivers as it processes them,
and that is where it locks up - presumable one of the drivers must be bad??


Thanks,

Brad

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

What about putting the computer on your LAN, connecting to the default admin
share(s) across the network, and copying the files across that way (taking
ownership if need be at that point)?

For laptops - not recommended to have important data stored solely on them.
Offline files is one option (but I dislike it) - see www.centered.com for a
very inexpensive little utility that syncs files very well. That way, if the
laptop gets stolen or crushed by marauding elephants, you still have a copy
of the data from the last time the sync was done - I usually set up
SecondCopy to sync every 30 minutes to the user's home directory on the
server, from the local data folder (I also usually set up c:\data rather
than using the profile folder for My Documents).

HTH

 

[Brad Pears]

I can try that but...

1) I have no clue what the administrator account for this machine is.
(password is not blank)
2) How do you connect to an XP machine using the default administrative
share? I tried connecting to one of our XP machines here, and when I connect
as the administrator, all I see is 'Printers and Faxes" and "Scheduled
Tasks". How do you access the default C$ share?

Thanks,

Brad


"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

 

[Brad Pears]

I can try that but I do not know the username/password of the admin account
on that machine - unless I can take ownership of a file on an XP "Home"
machine from my XP "Pro" machine?

Brad

"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

 

[Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]]

I can try that but...

1) I have no clue what the administrator account for this machine is.
(password is not blank)

Does the user account on the laptop have admin rights? If so, try it using
his credentials.

2) How do you connect to an XP machine using the default
administrative share? I tried connecting to one of our XP machines
here, and when I connect as the administrator, all I see is 'Printers
and Faxes" and "Scheduled Tasks". How do you access the default C$
share?


Thanks,

Brad


"Lanwench [MVP - Exchange]"

What about putting the computer on your LAN, connecting to the
default admin share(s) across the network, and copying the files
across that way (taking ownership if need be at that point)?

For laptops - not recommended to have important data stored solely
on them. Offline files is one option (but I dislike it) - see
www.centered.com for a very inexpensive little utility that syncs
files very well. That way, if the laptop gets stolen or crushed by
marauding elephants, you still have a copy of the data from the last
time the sync was done - I usually set up SecondCopy to sync every
30 minutes to the user's home directory on the server, from the
local data folder (I also usually set up c:\data rather than using
the profile folder for My Documents).

HTH