"Access is denied"

"Access is denied"

I'm trying to help a friend recover documents from his hard drive. He was running XP Home.

I've added his hard drive as a "slave" and I can see everything except it's not allowing me into some of the folders that I need to access to recover his data.

In SafeMode I have "taken ownership" of his drive but I'm still not able to open "My Doc" folders from 4 different users who originally signed in under different login screens but the same password.

In SafeMode those folders do not have a "Security" tab after right-clicking on them and then going to Properties.

I have noticed that the folders I can't get into are slightly a lighter yellow color than the folders I do have access to.

GetDataBack has been suggested but I've never used it and he has a lot of family photos that he doesn't have anywhere else so I'm concerned about doing something that would make his data unrecoverable.

Any ideas?

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308421

See above. Thanks Steve. As you've seen I've posted on a couple of sites cause I've run out of things I know to do.

You can try booting to a live linux disc and copying the files over since linux doesn't abide by windows ntfs permissions.

Where can I download a Linux disk? And will my harddrive be ok?

http://www.ubuntu.com/

A "live" disc means that it boots the OS from the CD. It doesn't affect your hard drive files.

Downloading as we speak. Will report back.

So basically I load the ubunto cd and it will then show me the files and folder on both my hd and the slave I'm trying to access?

Have you ever used Linux before?

http://www.ubuntupocketguide.com/index_main.html

Nope! Anything I should know?

Got ubuntu downloaded and an external hd so I'll burn an iso and give it a shot tomorrow and report back.

Got the Ubuntu guide.


Thanks.

Ubuntu didn't load on my test computer. But was able to load Puppy Linix which worked ok on there.

Now I'm concerned about running on my everday computer. But unfortunately it's the only computer I have with a SATA drive connection that I can use to "slave" it.

Any problems or downside to running on it my "good" computer?

Like I said, a "live" disc boots the OS from the CD itself. It does not write files to your hard drive.

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD

Quote:

---

A LiveCD is a special version of Ubuntu (or Linux in general) that is built to run only off the CD without needing to be installed. This makes a great tool to test hardware, do system recovery or show new people Ubuntu.

---

http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windo...dows-computer/

That being said, you should always have a backup of your computer. If you don't have a backup of your "good" computer, then you need to make one.

I have a "slave" on my computer that backs up every two hours so I guess I'll just give it a go. Thanks.

Ran it on MY computer. Could see his drive but couldn't get into any of the lighter yellow folder. Didn't say I was restricted, it just showed an empty folder.

I'm about as far as I can go unless I try one of the "data recovery" programs which may be a waste of $.

Thanks for all your help and as always, I learned a lot in the process.

It should have still been visible in Ubuntu. Hmmm.

The only other thing would be UBCD4Win. Fair warning, this is not a "download and burn" program. Read the instructions and faq pages. You will need an XP CD to build it.
http://ubcd4win.com/index.htm

Sorry, Tried to load ubuntu on another system "w/o any change to the system" to see how she do but I get the following: Failed to start the X server (your graphical interface). It is likely that it is not set up correctly.

Would you like to view the X output to diagnose the problem. If I say yes I get the following: Warning: failsafe mode was already attempted to within 30 seconds.
Warning: falling back to gdm to report the issue.

Then I tried Puppy Linix. That loaded.