reformatted hard drive word files won't open

  • Thread starter Thread starter gus1339
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gus1339

I have a Pentium 4 -512 Ram -2.41 Ghz -WinXP Home PC.

I reformatted the hard drive for a friend. Everything went great. There
were 2 user accounts. Hers was password protected. I backed up all data
and I'm trying to restore the data on the newly formatted pc.

His word documents are fine. None of hers will open. I can see them,
but I get an error msg that says check the file permissions for the
document or drive. Could it be because her user was password protected?
I tried password protecting her new user account with the same password
and tried to open a file. No luck.

Even if I try to copy the files from the CD I burned them to, I get a
msg that says, "Can not copy from the source file or disk."

The properties say read only and will not let me change this in any
way.

Please --Help!
 
gus1339 said:
I have a Pentium 4 -512 Ram -2.41 Ghz -WinXP Home PC.

I reformatted the hard drive for a friend. Everything went great. There
were 2 user accounts. Hers was password protected. I backed up all data
and I'm trying to restore the data on the newly formatted pc.

His word documents are fine. None of hers will open. I can see them,
but I get an error msg that says check the file permissions for the
document or drive. Could it be because her user was password protected?
I tried password protecting her new user account with the same password
and tried to open a file. No luck.

Even if I try to copy the files from the CD I burned them to, I get a
msg that says, "Can not copy from the source file or disk."

The properties say read only and will not let me change this in any
way.

Please --Help!
Click to expand...


Take Ownership of the files and folders. In Help and Support search on
Ownership or see this KB article:
HOW TO: Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421
 
I followed the directions, but there is no security option to take
ownership. The only tab is General and only attributes are read/ hidden
/ archive and no other tab available.

It has to have something to do with her password. Her pictures appear,
but will not open or preview either.
 
Are both systems Windows XP Pro? Pro has security features that are
missing in Home.

Also, by any chance was she using EFS (encrypting file system)? If so,
and if you didn't make a backup key first, the data is probably gone for
good. EFS is so secure that it's not uncommon for people to lose their
own stuff.
 
No, it was xp pro and is now xp home. The computer was built a couple
of years ago and she had not OS disk, so she bought Home. Not sure
about the EFS.
 
That's part of your problem then, because Pro has file system security
and Home doesn't. That's why there is no security tab. At the very
least, you are probably going to have to recover the data on a system
with XP Pro (doesn't have to be the "new" system .... you could recover
it on any system, then burn the files to a CD or send them over a
network. But the actual recovery will probably require XP Pro).
 
gus1339 said:
I followed the directions, but there is no security option to take
ownership. The only tab is General and only attributes are read/ hidden
/ archive and no other tab available.

It has to have something to do with her password. Her pictures appear,
but will not open or preview either.
Click to expand...
You turn off simple file sharing (in folder options) to get the security tab
to appear.
Jim
 
gus1339 said:
I have a Pentium 4 -512 Ram -2.41 Ghz -WinXP Home PC.

I reformatted the hard drive for a friend. Everything went great.
There were 2 user accounts. Hers was password protected. I backed up
all data and I'm trying to restore the data on the newly formatted pc.

His word documents are fine. None of hers will open. I can see them,
but I get an error msg that says check the file permissions for the
document or drive. Could it be because her user was password
protected? I tried password protecting her new user account with the
same password and tried to open a file. No luck.

Even if I try to copy the files from the CD I burned them to, I get a
msg that says, "Can not copy from the source file or disk."

The properties say read only and will not let me change this in any
way.
Click to expand...

Could this be the problem?

When you copied the files to a CD, they ended up on the CD as
write-protected.

Then, when you copied them BACK to the hard drive, they retained that
write-protected condition.
 
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