In XP how do I access user doc's from a secondary HD?

Question

I am trying to set up a friends computer. She has a new 250 gig SATA drive and I just plugged in her old IDE drive from her previous computer. I am running XP from the new drive.

First off do I still need to use jumpers to determine slave and master if one is SATA and the other IDE?

I want to get all of her files from her old "my documents" folder on the old IDE drive onto the new drive. Both drives are visable in explorer but the old my docs says access denied. I know this is because I've logged into a different windows XP on a different drive with a different user account.

I tried setting the old drive as primary in hopes to log into the old XP account just to move the files over that way but I get an ominus blue screen when it tried to launch. I think its that security measure that comes into effect when XP sees a new mother board... or something.

I also tried using the Administrator account to access it, still says denied.

Anyway, any help ASAP would be awesome

I stated that I tried disconnecting the SATA drive but that got a "windows has shut down to prevent damage...etc" blue screen before windows booted.

Also, I used a few peices from the old PC to make the new rig, so that all ready doesn't work, and if it was just a few things I'd try it but she would like to have two hard drives working on one PC. Its about 30 Gigs to be transfered, as well. SD might not do it =)

The "take ownership" bit I'm trying right now, thanks.

Answer 1

Dear its very simple. You should logon from the Administrator passward and "Take Ownership" rights from the old drive you wanna access. You must know the windows directory of old drive if its C drive follow this path

C:\documents and setting\LOGIN NAME\

here you will find the Desktop and My documents folder just copy these folders

Another solution could be like this that you should unplug the new SATA hard disk and boot the system from old hard disk. boot the system normally, login in to the system copy Desktop and My Documents to another drive then shutdown the system and again plug the new hard drive, boot from it and copy

I am sure that this will work just as I say

Answer 2

If she still has her old computer, put the old disk back into it and copy the files over by using disks (floppy, flash drive, zip, etc.) or by setting up a small network or using a crossover cable between the two systems.

If you have a SATA and IDE usually the SATA drive if connected to SATA 0 on the motherboard becomes the primary drive. The jumper on the IDE may have to be changed to be the slave drive. If you set both as primary you could have problems booting up (the blue screen you mentioned). You may want to check them in the BIOS settings. If the Administrator passwords are the same on both drives you could log in as the Administrator and try to access the documents.