Data Recovery. I need help

[mcgusto82]

I have an older 2.5 laptop hard drive. About 3 years ago, the laptop crash and i re-installed windows, BUT on a different location. Well, i now have that hard drive on an encloasure. All of the Windows1 files are there, except when i try to get into my document files i'm not allowed to. My windows2 Files are all accessible. I don't know what to do. I HAVE TONS OF MEDIA I NEED TO GET TO!!

[ragingfish]

what happens when you try to access it. do you get an error?

[nygiantzz1]

If I understand you correctly, you have 2 partitions on 1 hard drive with a copy of windows on both. When you reinstalled everything, did you keep the same login info on the new install? It sounds like the first partition is access protected, can you right click the my documents folder and check the security settings on the folder?

[Vibr8tr]

My thoughts..... you can get all your data off it at the cost of $24 (or less if you search around)http://www.tigerdirect.com/app...d=470I work as a computer Tech for the army (contractor now). We swear by these cables. Any time a computer crashes, and the people start freaking out about loosing everything they have, and we are talking about re-imaging it..... we take it to another computer, hook it up to a USB port, and we can get all the info off. Basically all this does is turn your HD into an external Hard drive, or giant thumbdrive...... they work, trust me.

[northvibe]

Did you have a password on your username/account your data is in? sounds like your folders are protected. The permissions need to be reset, if your an administrator you should be able to fix the folder permissions or get a windows password reset cd (its a bootable linux cd made just to reset windows xp/2000 passwords) but you might have to have that drive as your only hdd installed :S then you will be able to strip the password off that user name account. i think im missing a way but its dang early and my coffee hasnt kicked in so gimme a little bit of time here to figure it out.

[ColonelPanic]

It's definitely a permissions thing... It's thinking you shouldn't have rights to see what you're seeing. UNIX has had such a concept since the dawn of time, it took eleventeen decades for Microsoft to catch on to the concept so it's still relatively new there. You could always try some sort of live Linux distro and try to mount the partition with your data on it and copy the stuff elsewhere. I think Linux does NTFS now as long as it isn't encrypted nowadays but I don't know for sure.

[Atomb]

unix had it and then linux and then the MAC! oh don't forget about the mac...blah blah blah do what vibr8tr said...i've done it in the past and it works fine.not sure if required but, don't forget to change the jumper on the harddrive (there will be a little image to show you how to put it into 'slave' mode).

[RePo]

OK, here's your scenario: You're running windows XP (Home or Professional) on that crashed windows installation. When that user account was created, it had a password set on it. In XP when you set that password, it asks you if you want the files to be private. If you select YES, all the files are setup with a security level that any other user is not able to access in XP (*Note, XP problem only). Solution: Connect that hard drive to a windows 2000 computer. When you right click that users folder, choose properties. 2000 will have a 4th tab on the top that's missing in XP. (Security). There you can give your current win2000 user account read/write permissions on that protected folder. Read all the data, burn disc, copy, anything. Alternate method: If you only have XP on your host computer, boot into safe mode and log on as administrator. Here that 4th security tab will appear when you right click that user folder on the external drive. You'll be able to give the administrator read rights to that folder, too. You may not be able to recurse the rights, so you'll have to set the rights on every folder you want to access. That's why I have to keep a win2000 machine around the shop, just for this exact reason.

[Vibr8tr]

Quote, originally posted by Atomb »not sure if required but, don't forget to change the jumper on the harddrive (there will be a little image to show you how to put it into 'slave' mode).Thanks for the back up, I was starting to worry no one read my post. And most times the jumper is set to "cable select" now, so you don't have to worry... but it's a great idea to check, or you could confused for a while.

[mcgusto82]

I'm going to try what REPO said to do. Just to clear up things.. I was running XP professional on a GATEWAY P4. While i was deployed on a carrier, it crashed. One of the IT guys gave me a bootable windows CD. I basicvally had to install windows again. But i knew not to write over the other windows regestry. Then i got back and just didn't bother fix the issue. About 1 year ago, i sold that laptop for parts and kept the drive. So a few months ago i got an enclosure to try to salvage data. That's when i remember all of the old data i had. Right now i'm a Media center laptop. The enclosure's direction is to set the jumpers to "master" i have another 3.5 enclosure and same setting there. I was the second owner of that PC. The error i'm getting is "file not accesive, access is denied"

[nygiantzz1]

What RePo told you will work. This may help too, if you don't have access to a Win2000 system. Log In to your laptop (media center edition) right click the start button, left click explore and find the external hard drive. Right click on the drive and look for "Sharing and Security" Set it up as a shared drive. This may allow you to access the files since both drives have XP installed. In either case, once you gain access, put everything on CD/DVD or a flash drive and never deal with this again. Good Luck!