Here is the short version of the long sad saga thus far:
The hard drive on my laptop (XP) failed. I was able to use a USB adaptor cable to hook it up to my desk top computer (windows 7) and using Easeus Todo backup backed up the data. The hard drive was under waranty and so I shipped it back to the manufacturer. In the mean time I created as small partion on my desktop and restored the backup there so I could access the files etc.
The problem comes when I try to open the documents and settings and then try to open my user directory I get a message that I need administrator privileges to open it. I cannot edit the privileges. I created an adminstrator acount with the same name and password as was on my laptop and use that account to try to open the files but I get the same error message.
Any ideas on how to get to the files?
I read an article that shows a registry tweak to run an application in the runas administrator mode but there are too many files I want to do that for all of them.
Is the problem because I’m using and win7 machine to access an xp folder? I am running win7 pro so I could download the windows xp compatibilty mode and try running from there. But I don’t know if that would gain me anything.
Sorry, I can’t help. But I’m posting this in sympathy as I have a similar condition on my inherited laptop. I won’t say a problem, as I don’t give a damn.
I inherited this from my son, who inherited it from the son of my wife’s boss. It has had three different names as the sole owners of the laptop.
My wife offered to reformat it and rebuild it. I said no, as I wasn’t bothered. I, Fred, am the user and administrator of this machine. However, when you look on Windows Explorer at the Documents and Settings, the name on the folder is “Ben” (my son). Will Windows let me change it? Of course not.
I have a stack of 20 Windows updates that won’t run because of this stupid name and ownership problem. Did Microsoft imagine that nobody would ever take over someone else’s machine? It’s pathetic.
We have a hardware firewall, so I’m not bothered by security issues. It just takes a long time to close down my machine, as it runs through these twenty attempted updates every time.
Copying the user name and pw won’t work; the OS adds an uneditable unique record number to each profile, and won’t allow repeats. Try this:
Open explorer
Right click to select the ‘documents and settings’ on the new partition, or even the whole thing
In the menu bar, got to tools/folder options and select the ‘view’ tab
Look for the Hidden Files and Folders entry. It has two settings, “Don’t show hidden files, folders, or drives” & “show hidden files, folders, or drives”. The first is the default; select the second.
Somewhere in this process you’ll be asked if you want this change to apply to the entire contents, including internal folders and files. Say yes.
If that doesn’t resolve the issue:
right click the targeted drive and select ‘properties’
select the ‘sharing’ tab, and click the advanced sharing button
click the "share this folder’ button
this should ungrey the permissions button.
Nearly there!
The upper box lists users and groups, with the default being ‘everyone’.
you can use the ‘add’ button to add new users or groups. If you want only your login to have access, use the add function and create an entry for your login, and then edit its rights.
If you want the change to apply to everyone, the edit the pemissions of the group “everyone”.
Click the ‘full control’ box.
You’re done. Can you get at the files you want, now?
ps: I’m writing on a win7 system, so it’s possible that things won’t look the same in xp.
For each of these, you can set permission, ie who can do what.
Give the user or group ‘full control’ rights.
s1m0n, your instructions worked to give me access into all the folders in the Documents and Settings folder. Before I could just see the all users and guest folders. I can now open my Greg folder, and can see the folders within. One step closer.
I cannot open any of the folders in the Greg folder.
In the advanced security settings for any of theses folders under permissions it says I do not have permission to view or edit this object’s permission settings.
When I try to change the permissions on any folder in the user name folder, everything looks good until I hit the apply button. Then I get an error message that an error occurred, access is denied and a shared resource has not been created.
I also cannot copy the folder to another location.
Is this computer on a domain (part of a network with a central server and central administration) or a stand-alone personal computer? What about the source drive? Do you have an admin login on this computer?
I don’t have time to write instructions, but google ‘edit user account type’ and the name of your O/S and look for instructions online. Check to see whether your present login is a member of the ‘administrators’ group. If not, make it one, reboot, and then try opening a folder. Get anywhere?
Both computers are stand alone but networked together to share internet access and printers.
The laptop with the orginal hard drive would not boot into windows from the hard drive. The diaganotstic software from the HD manufacturer said there was a bad sector. Since I had a backup of the drive I did the recomended low level format of the drive and re ran the diagnostics and got the same result. So I sent it in to the manufacturer under waranty.
The account I am using on my desktop is an administratior account.
I will try a reboot when I get home form work.
I tried using a program for recovering data from malfunctioning hard drives. I had restored the backup to a partition, so I used the program to read the data from that partition, which then allowed me to copy the data to a folder on my desktop. Once I had done that, I could access the data. (and back it up onto dvd’s)
Thanks for the help, and here is a Poststructural Pint for all of the members of the Geek Oracle. Cheers!
