Old Hard Drive has restricted files

[Guest]

Hello,

My computer crashed and I bought a new one. For the old hard drive from the
crashed computer, I bought a hard drice enclosure kit to transfer my files
via usb to the new computer.
I am be able to access administrator files and owner files but when I try to
get the files from my created password protected account, Eveline, everything
is restricted.
Is there a way to access my files?
I really need them.
Both hard disks have windows xp on them.
Thanks for any information
Respectfully,
Eveline

 

[Ted Zieglar]

""Access is Denied" Error Message When You Try to Open a Folder"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810881/en-us

"How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP"
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us

 

[Guest]

Hello Ted

Thank for replying.
It does not solve my problem. I hooked the old hard drive back up and I did
a search for the picutres and documents I need but they are not there. The
folders under the account Eveline seem to be empty. I have no idea where all
my files are. Is there a way to boot or run windows on the old hard drive so
I can access my account ?
I can access 12.5 MB of the 33MB that are used. I am not sure where the
other 18.5 MB are.
I tried accessing the drive via the MS-Dos but get the same Access denied.
Any Idea?

Thanks
Eveline

 

[Ted Zieglar]

You can't access an NTFS partition through MS-DOS.

Don't know why your folders are empty, nor have you provided any clues that
might suggest why the folders are empty.

 

[Guest]

Ted,

Sorry for not explaining it better, but when I go with the cursor over the
folder it says "this folder is empty".

It seem I can access evrything except the files that are stored in my
created user account. I do not know where they are. I assume that those are
the missing 18.5 MB.

Eveline

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hello Ted

Thank for replying.
It does not solve my problem. I hooked the old hard drive back up and I did
a search for the picutres and documents I need but they are not there. The
folders under the account Eveline seem to be empty. I have no idea where all
my files are. Is there a way to boot or run windows on the old hard drive so
I can access my account ?
I can access 12.5 MB of the 33MB that are used. I am not sure where the
other 18.5 MB are.
I tried accessing the drive via the MS-Dos but get the same Access denied.
Any Idea?

First, don't write anything else to that drive. If files were deleted or
marked as deleted, you increase the risk of them being overwritten and
rendered unrecoverable. So, it's probably best if you don't try to set it
up to boot from it.

If the drive is formatted as NTFS (and it sounds like it) you cannot access
it by a DOS boot, unless you use special 3rd party drivers. You have to
use XP or another NT system. If you're using the command prompt within
XP - that isn't DOS, it's XP without the visuals.

Was your old system XP Pro, and if so, did you encrypt any of the files or
folders (XP Home does not have this function built in)? This is not the
same as having a password on the account. If you did encrypt them, and you
didn't back up the account credentials, they are for all practical purposes
gone.

If you didn't encrypt the files, depending on what happened to the disk,
they may be recoverable.

As described in other posts, you should be able to simply take ownership of
the files and folders and recover them. You might need a bit of
assistance in setting the permissions for this, but it normally works.

In worse cases, you may need to use data recovery tools, like R-Studio:
http://www.data-recovery-software.net/

They have a demo, which will list what it can recover, so you can have a
very good idea of what the situation is before you purchase it. Note that
this listing can take *hours* to complete. The demo version does allow you
to save the listing, so if it looks like it's what you need, save the
listing, call them for the working version, and open the saved list. Then
you can proceed to take back the files you need. While not a speed demon,
this can work *very* well.

Past that, you're looking at data recovery services. When I've had to use
these services, prices have ranged from $1000 to $5000 Canadian.

HTH
-pk

 

[Ricky]

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&Product=winxp
In XP Home you have to boot in safe mode to see the security tab. In XP Pro
you have to disable simple file sharing.

 

[Guest]

Hello Patrick,

I tried to take ownership over the folders but it will not work.
Both hard drives only have Windows XP Home edition on it and I did not
encrypt any files, just password protected my account.
Would it make any difference if I mount my old hard drive internally into
the new computer?
Will this recovery tool work with my old hard drive even thou it is only
attached with the usb?
Thanks
Eveline

 

[Patrick Keenan]

Hello Patrick,

I tried to take ownership over the folders but it will not work.

Does it give you error messages - access denied, for example - or are the
folders empty? If you've done it correctly you should get no access
denied messages.

Both hard drives only have Windows XP Home edition on it and I did not
encrypt any files, just password protected my account.

Oh good. That's a relief.

Would it make any difference if I mount my old hard drive internally into
the new computer?

Functionally, no. Data transfers will be faster, yes. It won't make a lot
of difference if it's USB2, and if the new machine is actually new, it
almost certainly is.

Will this recovery tool work with my old hard drive even though it is only
attached with the usb?

Yes, it will just take longer. If it's on a USB2 port, just leave it where
it is.

One other thing you might try is taking an image of the old drive, mounting
it, and exploring the files from the image.

Go to http://www.acronis.com/homecomputing/products/trueimage/

and download the free trial (full-feature, for 2 weeks or so, and worth
purchasing).

install the trial, and back up the old drive to a spot on your new drive.
Once it's done, tell TrueImage to mount the image - it will give it a drive
letter. You can now explore all the files on the image without having to
worry about overwriting anything on the old drive. When you find the files
you're looking for, you can simply drag and drop them to a new location.

To help you search for them, I suggest this excellent free search utility,
Agent Ransack:

http://www.mythicsoft.com/agentransack/

It's extremely faster than the XP search utility. Once you have the drive
image created and mounted and Ransack installed, open any explorer window,
right-click on the new drive letter and choose Agent Ransack from the popup
menu. Enter a filename that you know you are looking for, and click Search.

If you can't find the files this way, proceed to the r-studio demo.

HTH
-pk