XP Documents & Settings Data Recovery Problem

[Kaniksu]

Merry Christmas and Greetings,

This problem is difficult to describe but I will forge ahead.

My client has an eMachine PC that had a hard crash, power supply and motherboard are shot as best I and my hardware specialist can tell. However her WD1200 hard drive appears unscathed. I removed the hard drive and tried to slave it to several PCs but the only one that could see it was an XP O/S machine.

Although pure data files can be copied from her HD to mine, I receive an error if I (1) attempt to open the folder Documents and Settings, (2) attempt to copy the same. The error is "[file/folder] is not accessible, access is denied".

I do not believe the files are encrypted, as my client is a PC user, not a geek.

She has many files important to her in the MyDocuments folder and I cannot figure how to get past this error to extract the files to my hard drive or a CD-ROM.

Any suggestions will be most appreciated!

Regards, Kaniksu

 

[Kaniksu]

I found the answer in the TechTips forum. Rather than go through the steps as it tok a few mistakes here and there, the answer came from the Microsoft bulletin 810881.

Article ID : 810881
Last Review :June 23, 2005
Revision : 2.2

URL: http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=810881#appliesto

I quote (paste) from the beginning of the article:

SYMPTOMS
When you try to open a folder in Microsoft Windows XP, you may receive the following error message, where Folder is the name of the folder that you cannot open:
"Folder is not accessible. Access is denied."

CAUSE
This issue may occur if the folder that you cannot open was created on an NTFS file system volume by using a previous installation of Windows, and then installing Windows XP. This issue may occur although you enter the correct user name and password. This issue occurs because the security ID for the user has changed. Although you use the same user name and password, your security ID no longer matches the security ID of the owner of the folder that you cannot open.

For example, although you use the same user name and password, you may no longer have permission to open the folder after you complete the following steps:

1. Before you install Windows XP Professional, you change the actual location, or target location, of the My Documents folder to another volume.
2. You format the primary partition.
3. You install Windows XP Professional.

In my case, I followed the steps recommended in the article for the Documents and Settings folder in my client's drive now attached as slave. By making myself 'owner' of the folder, all was opened up to me.

It took some time and several mistakes but I can now access all the files.

:D