Recover files from corrupted hard drive

[chem15t]

I have a system with Windows XP SP2. Recently, there was a power surge that
shut down the surge protector and PC. I rebooted and the system seemed fine,
until it locked up running MS Word. I could only exit with a hard shutdown.
On attempting to restart, the system attempts to boot but goes to a blue
screen with an error looking for a .dll file. The hard drive is OK as I put
it into an external case and connected it to our other PC via USB. It has
Vista. The XP system had 3 users and I had to use a password protected
account as Administrator to keep children from changing settings. I can open
and copy the files in the two User Accounts, but it will not let me access
the Adminstrator account since it states it does not have Administrative
permission. I was able to recover 80% of the files on DVD backup disks, but
one will not read. Is there a way to access the Administrator account? How
do you get to a position to enter the password? I have access to an XP
machine through a friend. I was not able to get into Safe Mode via F8 key
when drive was in the original system.

 

[Patrick Keenan]

I have a system with Windows XP SP2. Recently, there was a power surge
that
shut down the surge protector and PC. I rebooted and the system seemed
fine,
until it locked up running MS Word. I could only exit with a hard
shutdown.
On attempting to restart, the system attempts to boot but goes to a blue
screen with an error looking for a .dll file. The hard drive is OK as I
put
it into an external case and connected it to our other PC via USB. It has
Vista. The XP system had 3 users and I had to use a password protected
account as Administrator to keep children from changing settings. I can
open
and copy the files in the two User Accounts, but it will not let me access
the Adminstrator account since it states it does not have Administrative
permission. I was able to recover 80% of the files on DVD backup disks,
but
one will not read. Is there a way to access the Administrator account?
How
do you get to a position to enter the password? I have access to an XP
machine through a friend. I was not able to get into Safe Mode via F8 key
when drive was in the original system.

The passwords aren't an issue, and you don't need another XP system.
Google "Take Ownership XP" and you will see what is necessary to take
ownership of the files in question. The process will be similar for Vista,
though there, you need to use elevated privileges.

Once that's done, you will be able to copy the files you want, with two
caveats:
1) that there isn't disk or file system damage that prevents the files being
recovered, and

2) that it isn't XP Pro *with encryption enabled*. This is not possible to
enable with XP Home, so if it's Home, ignore this.

If it was XP Pro AND IF encryption was enabled, you need to import the
account credentials that you didn't have to back up when you encrypted.
If you only password protected the account, no problem; taking ownership
will solve this. . If you encrypted and don't have the credentials, there
is a good chance you'll never see that data again.


HTH
-pk