Hey guys,

I have a problem which is pretty long winded, I'll try to explain as best I can (I am nowhere near a computer expert, so if anything doesnt make sense I'm sorry, also bear with me in any replies)

On Friday night I turned my computer on and after the initial start up page it showed an error stating a critical file is either missing or corrupt in windows/system32/config/windows, telling me to use the start up disc to repair.

I dont currently have a start up disc (having lost it during a move) so am trying to find a friend who has one.

I was told in the meantime by a number of people that I could take the main (master) hard drive (which had 1 user area, which was password protected) from that computer out and place it in another computer (the one i am currently using) as a secondary hard drive, allowing me to transfer any files i need over/back up if need be. Thats all fine, I've managed to sort out the jumper settings and I am now running that hard drive as a slave one fine.

Apart from one problem, I was unable to access f:\documents and settings\tatious (which of course houses a number of folders including my documents) I have now, through safe mode, given myself access privileges for that folder and I can access that folder and 3 other sub folders, but cant access "my documents, nethood, printhood, recent, start menu, templates, user data, windows" folders, it comes up "........ is not accessible, access denied."

And I cant seem to give privileges to these folders like I could to the main Tatious folder, can anyone give me any assistance on this?

And I hope this was the right place to post

You got in everything but the kitchen sink except for the OS you're running. Is this XP Pro or Home edition? You did good to slave that hard drive into a computer so you're 1/2 way there. You'll need to take ownership of those folders. This MSKB Article talks about how to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP. If you're running XP Home, you cannot disable simple file sharing so you'll have to use CACLS which is a command line utility available for NT based systems. This MSKB article gives you examples on how to use it.

Now after reading all those links if you're head isn't swimming too much, you can check out Psexec utility which will give you access to everything on that hard drive.

http://www.microsoft.com/technet/sysintern...ies/PsExec.mspx

If neither of the above options appeal to you, you have a 3rd option available. Linux is capable of reading at a much lower level on the hard drive and you will most certainly be able to copy those files onto another hard drive. There's actually versions of Linux that you can use to boot up with and carry out those 'copy' operations w/out ever having to install it on your hard drive.

The Linux version that I use all the time to pull data off of corrupted operating systems is Knoppix 5; if you are interested in doing this I will post detailed information. It is free download, you burn the ISO to a CD and create a full-blown Knoppix operating system that loads and runs from your CD/DVD driver-no installation required. Easy to use. Let me know if you are interested in doing this.

So, anyone solve this problem? Oddly enough I'm having a similar problem. A hard drive started giving me a corrupt DLL error, and no amount system restore was working on it. So I added this 1st drive as a secondary drive to a known working HDD, I can see the old one fine, but when I try to copy the docs outta the first drive, it tells me access is denied. I tried the cmd line in safe mode thing, and have added my user (of the new HDD) as admin with full control to a folder aobve the ones I can't get in, then enabled security to change to the child objects (folders behind it, right?) and I still can't get those files. Ranchhand mentions there is a linux program that may help... I've never used linux much, but am willing to get my hands dirty. Please post the info on that program!


~Thanks

Sorry for getting back so late - are you still interested in pulling that data off your hard drive?

I discovered this thread during a search for possible solutions to my problem before I posted a new topic. It's not exactly the same, but similar enough I think.

I moved the My Documents folder to a 2nd HD. All of the articles at this Google search describe the process I used.

At that point, I had access problems. The folder is Read Only and can't be changed by way of Properties. So I used suggestions from this search but that didn't work. Then I found this article to change using the Command Prompt, but I got invalid parameter when I used exactly what they said, sigh.

Now I'm a little confused by this:



That article about taking ownership says I can get to the Security Tab via Safe Mode in XP Home. I have a USB keyboard so I can't get into Safe Mode. So until I find another keyboard (which is around here somewhere) I thought I'd check further.

I also found this utility from Kelly'sKorner but I'm afraid to use it without understanding the implications. Supposedly the ReadOnly or System attribute on the folder doesn't stop you from modifying the files in that folder, or even renaming it; it's only used to cause Explorer to request the Desktop.ini of that folder to see if any special folder settings need to be set. For instance, to see if the views for that folder are customized by Windows --- like the Filmstrip view for any of the My Pictures folders. I don't really want to lose that particular functionality.

Will the Kelly'sKorner utility or CACLS mess up the customized views for those folders? I'm not having any problems with my drives, so I could conceivably move the My Documents back to the C drive if there's a better way to move them over than the one I used.

PS This might need to be in a new topic, so feel free.

Thanks for any ideas/help.