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Cannot access old Windows HDD

Forum Storage : Hard Disks - Cannot access old Windows HDD

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T-Mo   06-27-2008 at 11:47:22 AM

Morning all,

I have done my best to find if anyone has posted a similar thread to this and cant find one. If there is, I apologise.

I built my own machine a few years ago and have been steadily upgrading it - sometimes because i wanted faster parts and sometimes beacuse my liquid cooling system decides it wants to leak and kindly fries parts for me. I am now air cooling all the way...

None the less I had 1 HDD which i installed Windows on which may or may not have been a legal copy. I may or may not have been in college.

When replacing the motherboard, processor, RAM and graphics card (8800 GTX!), some of which were fried and some of which i might as well have replaced, I bought 2 new HDD's and amongst other parts a legit copy of Windows XP. My friend helped me installed the new parts, I installed the OS. The problem I have now is that whilst my system can detect and access the HDD (as far as i can tell there are no problems with it) I cannot access some of my old folders for music, photos etc. Strangely some of the folders I can access and some I can't. It just says "access denied" for the ones i cant. What I have been told by my knowledgeable friend in the shop is that because I had passwords on my old version of windows, I cannot access some of the folders. Is this true? Is my data lost?

Anyone want to buy a Zalman reserator v2? Ha...

Many thanks,

Tom

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skittle   06-27-2008 at 01:04:15 PM
- 0 +

I would think it has something to do with the partition being marked as active... have you tried to boot from that drive?

try to boot from a linux live cd, and see if you can access the data and copy it over. (Yes NTFS support is much better than it used to be in linux!)

------------------------------ macgirlfriend:
"Hey I don't get you people, the people on insanely mac were so much nicer"
 Reply to skittle
Zenthar   06-27-2008 at 01:10:40 PM
- 0 +

You might have enabled "folder security" (or whatever it is called) on your old HD to prevent other users from accessing the data.

------------------------------ The capacity to learn is a gift; The ability to learn is a skill; The willingness to learn is a choice. - Rebec of Ginaz
http://valid.canardpc.com/cache/banner/600609.png
 Reply to Zenthar
halcyon   06-28-2008 at 02:54:50 PM
- 0 +

Easy fix. ...thank goodness for VMWare...

You need to take ownership of all of the folders on the HDD...everything. 10 easy steps:

1. Open 'My Computer'
2. Press Ctrl+A
3. Once everything's highlighed, right-mouse click and select 'Properties'
4. Click the 'Security' tab
5. Click the 'Advanced' button
6. Click the 'Owner' tab
7. Select your username from those shown, and check the 'Replace owner on subcontainers and objects'
8. Click the 'OK' button
9. Watch the magic, and watch your folders become re-available.
10. Click the 'OK' button to close the 'Properties' window.

------------------------------ 17" MacBook Pro: 2.66Ghz, 4GB DDR3-1066, 256GB Corsair P256 SSD
 Reply to halcyon
T-Mo   07-17-2008 at 07:05:49 PM
- 0 +

apologies all for the help lads and lasses...(best to be PC...bom...bom)

I will report back tonight as to whether your suggestions work...

What is VMWARE halcyon?

I did have passwords on my old profiles and now it seems i am being stung for it...

Thanks again...

Tom

Reply to T-Mo
halcyon   07-18-2008 at 03:59:05 AM
- 0 +

VMWare is a PC virtualization package. It allows you to Windows Linux, Unix, Windows, etc. on virtual hardware inside of your existing OS. On fairly decent hardware you could run Linux or another flavor of Windows as easily as most people launch Word and have those virtual machines be more robust that many folks experience on their native hardware.

...that is a small part of what VMWare is. More robustly, it allows organizations to run several virtual servers on one physical server, thus saving costs. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/VMWare

------------------------------ 17" MacBook Pro: 2.66Ghz, 4GB DDR3-1066, 256GB Corsair P256 SSD
 Reply to halcyon
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