accessing external HDD user account from another PC

[chow choppe]

hi all

 

i am facing a problem....i had a compaq laptop with a hitachi HDD.

my laptop display has wnet off and its not starting. i needed sm important data from my laptop HDD so what i did was , i took out the laptop hard disk and put it on USb casing and then accessed it as external HDD. i am able to read it now but now the problem is that i am able to access everything but not anything that is under my user account folder

 

i.e c:/Documents and settings/xyz......

 

can someone help me how can i access my user account because i have all my data in the my documents and desktop of that user account

 

Thanks

Its urgent...please help

[AJLynn]

Was there security enabled on it? Check box that says something like "Do not allow other users to access these files"? Did you try making a user account with the same username and password and using that to access the disk?

[JohnT]

Why It's Not Working:

I'm guessing your drive is using NTFS permissions, as a result the dead laptop's hard drive doesn't recognize any user or admin on your new computer.

 

Simply changing the username/password to match what it was on the old machine won't work, since windows NT,2000 & XP all use a "serial number" that resolves to a local account ID. They tned to look something like S-1-5-21-199464 or something of the sort when Windows can't figure out who the actual named owner of the account is.

 

 

How to Fix it:

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

How to take ownership of a folder

 

Note You must be logged on to the computer with an account that has administrative credentials. If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an account that has Administrative rights to have access to the Security tab.

 

If you are using Windows XP Professional, you must disable Simple File Sharing. By default, Windows XP Professional uses Simple File sharing when it is not joined to a domain.

 

For additional information about how to do this, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base:

307874 (http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307874/) How to disable simplified sharing and set permissions on a shared folder in Windows XP

 

To take ownership of a folder, follow these steps:

1. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.

2. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears).

3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.

4. In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group. If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.

5. Click OK, and then click Yes when you receive the following message:

You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?

 

All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.

Note folder name is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of.

6. Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents.

 

Feel free to PM me if this doesn't work... Us General Contractors are not as uncooperative as you might think

 

-John

[AJLynn]

John's answer looks much better, try that

[chow choppe]

john u r right

thanks.

its worked

thanks

[JohnT]

glad I could help