Re: Accessing file on external HDD

[schen]

I'm working on a friend's laptop which is in major trouble. It has gotten to the point where it no long boots all the way through so my recommendation is to reload Windows and start over.

Of course that eliminates the possibility of attaching an external drive to recover his files. So I pulled the HDD and attached it to my machine intending on copying the files over before I reload his machine. Unfortunately it tells me "Access Denied" on his "My Documents" folder . Strangely enough, I can open the actual files when I go to the shortcuts in the "Recent Documents" folder. I've done this type of thing on a variety of machines loaded with everything from 98 to XPP and have not encountered one that denied me access. This machine has XP on it.

Anybody out there with thoughts?

[schen]

Never mind! I figured it out finally.

[carbon_unit]

Please, share you findings.

[schen]

I booted in Safe Mode which allowed me to log on as "Administrator". From there, I was able to go to the folder in question's "properties" menu and access the "Security" tab. Under that tab, you can set the security to allow either "Administrator" or "Administrators" to take possession of the files.

As it turned out, it was a good thing I did since I was barely able to get the files off. It looks like the HDD (a Toshiba 100Gb) is in the process of failing and won't go past 4% formatting!