Howdy, Stranger!
It looks like you're new here. If you want to get involved, click one of these buttons!
Quick Links
Trouble accessing files on an ancient hard disk
Serien
Member CommonPosts: 8,460
Hello all again 
Yea, I know, I tend to pop in when I have questions...how selfish of me.
Nonetheless, here's the ordeal:
My previous desktop "fried" back in '06 (later I found out it was just the mainboard). Let me add in here that for some reason it never worked as a slave drive, so recently I purchased an external enclosure and slipped the hard disk into it. I can access most of what is on the drive -- but I "don't have permission" to get to what I want!
Documents and Settings > Owner > My Documents
I changed the permissions on all the folders and filed in that ancient version of my documents, which gave me the following outcome: I can view pictures and documents that are IN SUBFOLDERS, but any document or picture just floating free in My Documents I cannot access...
"Windows cannot open blahblah.jpg :user does not have access privileges"
There are some important text documents I'd love to recover, and any help would be much appreciated!
Thanks in advance again guys, I love this community
--Murt
(by the way, tomorrow is my one year anniversary of legally dying and being "defibulated" back to life! haha)
Comments
Question, are you familiar with or have Knoppix or ERD Commander?
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
You should give RIP Linux a try, could very well pull some of the files
edit: If its a problem with permissions, try turning UAC off or logging in as the administrator.
well I downloaded Knoppix and put the .iso file on a dvd -- rebooted (obviously making sure that it would boot from my dvd drive before hard disk) and it just booted up to my normal desktop -- tried it several times over.
Could it be because I had the external drive connected?
And, then again, I'm not sure if I did the Knoppix ordeal properly, I just burned the .iso file onto a dvd rather than everything that came with the Knoppix download...
Once again, in advance, thanks for the help!
(btw, won't be responding for a bit, going out for a couple hours)
--Murt
SEMPER FI!
http://www.facebook.com/murtb
I am logged in as the administrator (of my current desktop or notebook, whichever I try to access the old hard disk from) ...
and, excuse my IT ignorance, but how would I go about turning the UAC off with BOTH Vista Basic and XP Media? (notebook and desktop, just for convenience)
Thanks in advance!
--Murt
SEMPER FI!
http://www.facebook.com/murtb
Something else to look into (if somehow things aren't working out) is BartPE (Bart's Preinstalled Environment). I came across it while search for ERD Commander... (found out ERD Commander is now part of Microsoft).
It is a bootable CD or Flash Drive to allow fixing on a problematic Windows Platform (but not all platforms). It should be able for you to access the files or change the permissions of the external hard drive, may be possible to copy as well.
Link:
http://www.nu2.nu/pebuilder/
I also didn't catch your last line. Congrats for coming back and being with the living.
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
I am logged in as the administrator (of my current desktop or notebook, whichever I try to access the old hard disk from) ...
and, excuse my IT ignorance, but how would I go about turning the UAC off with BOTH Vista Basic and XP Media? (notebook and desktop, just for convenience)
Thanks in advance!
--Murt
SEMPER FI!
In vista you go to Start > Control Panel > User Accounts > Turn off UAC...
XP Media doesn't have UAC
You should be able to pull the files from using some liveCD (such as Ubuntu or RIP) and not even install. If worse comes to worse, then just ISO the drive and copy the files once you reinstall windows.
Yeah I think the problem is that the CD is not a bootable CD. The iso file needs to be "Burned as an Image" onto the CD with the CD burning program. If the available program does not have such a feature, then will need to look one up... which this may then start becoming too much of a problem for the problem you have.
Nero Should be capable of doing this (if you have it).
There is MagicISO:
http://www.magiciso.com/
This I came across a forum during a search, so take it for what it is worth (I have not used it):
"Even though im pro Nero, i found there is a little software that is capable of almost everything nero can do... and yet is much less resource hungry as well... CD BURNER XP wich you can download here http://www.cdburnerxp.se/download.php?latest
After installation just choose the first option to burn a data cd...
then... once it loads, just go to FILE, there choose WRITE DISK FROM ISO FILE.... and then just load the iso and make sure to clik on FINALIZE CD... and just burn... always worked for me... don't know, just give it a try... so far all iso's have been bootable."
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
Nero Should be capable of doing this (if you have it).
There is MagicISO:
http://www.magiciso.com/
This I came across a forum during a search, so take it for what it is worth (I have not used it):
"Even though im pro Nero, i found there is a little software that is capable of almost everything nero can do... and yet is much less resource hungry as well... CD BURNER XP wich you can download here http://www.cdburnerxp.se/download.php?latest
After installation just choose the first option to burn a data cd...
then... once it loads, just go to FILE, there choose WRITE DISK FROM ISO FILE.... and then just load the iso and make sure to clik on FINALIZE CD... and just burn... always worked for me... don't know, just give it a try... so far all iso's have been bootable."
Also, your DVD/CD drive needs to be first in boot order.
That is true, forgot that one.
So how did it go? All good or still having problems?
And that is why...
Conservatives' pessimism is conducive to their happiness in three ways. First, they are rarely surprised -- they are right more often than not about the course of events. Second, when they are wrong they are happy to be so. Third, because pessimistic conservatives put not their faith in princes -- government -- they accept that happiness is a function of fending for oneself. They believe that happiness is an activity -- it is inseparable from the pursuit of happiness.
You should be able to access the files with Windows though.
Were the files encrypted? If not, become the owner of the My Documents folder through Security tab>>Advanced>>Ownership. Take ownership of the entire folder then try to access it.
If they were encrypted, try the Linux solutions presented by the other users.