How do I unlock a WinXP 'My Documents' folder from a profile that is on the hd of a now dead computer?

Question

I had two WinXP machines. 1 died so I turned its hard drive into an external hard drive for my other machine which still works fine and is still running XP. On the dead computer I had a user profile set up that I logged in under and was not the administrator, though I believe it had administrator privileges. This was the profile I normally used so all of the documents and pictures I kept on that computer were in that user profile's 'documents' folder. On the good computer I use the administrator profile all the time but I cannot access anything inside the user profile on the dead computer's hard drive. Whenever I try to go into the 'My Documents' folder, for instance, I get: "G:\Document and Settings\Profile Name\My Documents is not accessible. Access is denied."

I even tried creating a profile on the good computer using the dead computer's Profile Name and logging in under that, but that didn't work. Thanks for the help.

I've tried messing with the 'sharing and security' properties and every change I attempt to make has been met with an Access is denied message similar to the one I posted above. I've also tried making simpler properties changes like making the folder not Read Only and once again I get Access is denied. I have no idea how to edit the user profile that is associated with the folder, if that's possible as the second answerer suggests.

Answer 1

As long as you didn't have Windows built-in encryption enabled, then you CAN recover the documents by taking ownership of the directories in question.

Open up "My Computer", select Tools from the menu, then select "folder options", then select "View" option, and ensure that the "use simple file sharing" option is UNCHECKED; if it is checked, uncheck it. Then click OK.

Browse to the Profile Name directory that you're trying to access, right click on it, select "Properties", select the "security" tab, click the advanced button, click the "Owner" tab, and double click on the name of the account you want the ownership changed to. Click OK, then click OK again.

You should now be able to access your data. If not, perform the same actions for each subsequent folder--but it SHOULD be a recursive action (i.e., you should only need to do it once).

Answer 2

Change the security settings on the folder.....
remove the old user, administrator and system if it;s there , then add your own id, the system should ask if you want to take ownership of the foler, then you can get in.....that's if you run with admin rights...if not you can;t....or if you are the aministrator account you may not have the right to take ownership...

Answer 3

you can't i had that problem and i couldn't fix it.