Recovering Data on an XP drive

[JohnCarterofMars]

so I have a friend who cant get his system booted up(XP/Dell Box) and needs to recover some files off his SATA HD. I have removed the drive and installed it into a working system and was able to explore the drive. However, when I tried to copy the user folders, access denied. I tried to change ownership of the folders to the machine I was browsing the HD on, as per microsoft, but there was not an option to access the security settings in the properties dialog of the HD. therefore no access, can't copy, move, backup, browse or anything. any thoughts?

[spm97]

You need to "take ownership" of all the files. Search the internet for setowner.exe, and use that to assign yourself as the owner.

Then you can change the permissions.

Spam

[quote="JohnCarterofMars";p="103179"]
so I have a friend who cant get his system booted up(XP/Dell Box) and needs to recover some files off his SATA HD. I have removed the drive and installed it into a working system and was able to explore the drive. However, when I tried to copy the user folders, access denied. I tried to change ownership of the folders to the machine I was browsing the HD on, as per microsoft, but there was not an option to access the security settings in the properties dialog of the HD. therefore no access, can't copy, move, backup, browse or anything. any thoughts?
[/quote]

[JohnCarterofMars]

kew thanks spam! i'll give that a shot

[spm97]

Actually, you can do it in windows explorer too - just right click on the drive->properties.

Then you want the Security Tab.

Down at the bottom should be "Advanced"

And then you have an "Owner" tab.

Makes sense ?

Spam

[MrBlah]

You can also you an open source program called "Unlocker" it allows you to delete, move, copy, edit any files that are access denied or whatever.

[MrBlah]

Also, I have figured out that if you reinstall Windows on another HDD on the same computer, you usually don't even have to do that, or atleast I haven't

[Rigges]

[quote="MrBlah";p="103193"]
Also, I have figured out that if you reinstall Windows on another HDD on the same computer, you usually don't even have to do that, or atleast I haven't
[/quote]
You are quite correct if on te same PC with a differnt HD Booting you still have owner ship of all files the only problem is if there is andy corruption of the files IE you system OS crashed you may need a recovery program to pull the Info off like oh I dont know what it is its on my other pc