dvdchance

I installed an old hard drive into my new Vista Home basic PC.

It recognizes the 2 partictions on the drive, but shows access denied as the volume label, and I cannot get to any files.

When I try and take ownership, it goes thru all the folders and files, but when it finishes, I still get access denied.

I've tried various options under the security tab and nothing seems to make a bit of difference. When I look under the owner tab it shows "Unable to display current owner." as the current owner.

I know this drive was running under XP, and before that under NT Advanced server, if that makes any difference. The other 2 drives I had in that PC are accessable fine now under Vista.

jcgriff2

Hi dvdchance. . .


Was the HDD re-formatted when Vista was installed?

Run chkdsk from an elevated level -
START | type cmd into the start search box | right-click on cmd.exe above| run as admin | then type the following substituting the drive letter

chkdsk /r

See if you can access the partition now.

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

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dvdchance

Thanks for the reply...

No I didn't reformat it, my purpose is to retrieve some documents that I have on that disk. It's only a small 40gb drive, so I just want to copy the files from it onto the new drive. I have no plans to use this drive, as I have 2 other IDE drives I will have connected to the 1 IDE port and will have no connectors left for this HDD even if I did want to use it.

What is meant by elevated state?

Cheers

jcgriff2

Hi. . .

Did you run the chkdsk?

Elevated admin level is the hidden admin level that is above any other admin accounts. The instructions to run chkdsk /r bring you into the command prompt ("DOS") as the #1 admin (notice that you are brought into the path \windows\system32 vs. the run/cmd command which brings you up within your user profile folder). In XP every admin account had 2 user "tokens" full authority to do just about anything. In Vista the admin user accounts only have 1 of these 2 tokens. When 2 tokens are needed for something like a program installation, that brings up the User Account Control (UAC) screen where you hit Continue. If the hidden admin account is activated and password protected, the #2 admin accounts will be prompted by the UAC for a password each time instead of just clicking on Continue.

I would try to see if an elevated admin level can access it before you run chkdsk. To get to the elevated admin cmd -

START | type cmd into the start search box | right-click on cmd.exe above| run as admin | then type the following substituting the drive letter

dir x:\*.*

That will simply five you a listing of folders/files on the root of the drive.

If you cannot access in that manner, then run the chkdsk. If that does work do the following from the cmd prompt:

Net user administrator /active:yes

Now logoff your user account. You will see an account name Administrator waiting for you. Click on it & hit enter if asked for password. To de-activate, issue the same command, except change the yes to no.

I would not advise leaving this account active as short of re-installing Vista should you not be able to log into your account for some reason like forgetting password or you find your admin user account demoted to a standard account. That happened to my mom's system at Christmas. I recommend you have at least two admin user accounts under Vista even if the other's purpose is none other than a reserve account and never used.

Regards. . .

jcgriff2

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EDIT: Q please - Central NJ - anywhere near Spring Lake?

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