jweather73

There's a folder that I simply cannot access no matter what I've tried. It's the "Documents and Settings" folder from an old hard drive (it's the one I used to have Vista installed on -- which I think is the problem.)

Anyway, I'm using XP Pro, I have already disabled "Simple File Sharing" and I can get the "Security" tab on any other folder--just not this one.

Any ideas why this one particular folder won't let me see the security tab?

CD27

boot into safe mode, create a new user, give that user privileges to the file, and then login as that user. or, if you can, give your own user permissions to it.

cd

jweather73

Well that's just the problem. There's no way for me to give anyone permission to that folder. That folder doesn't have the "Security" tab, but ALLLLLL the others do. I'm only having problems with just this one folder.

CD27

i'm lost on this one. is there an error code or something you can give us? maybe we can search for that.

jweather73

You're not the only one that's lost on this one. I do this for a living and have been for years...and I'm completely stumped.

The only thing I can think of that has caused it is the fact that I had Vista installed on this particular HDD at one point so maybe it's something Vista did to it?

Is there any kind of utility that can remove all permissions on any given folder?

bluesrocker

Open a dos prompt and delete the folder using the dos name for the folder.

CD27

jweather, you DID boot into safe made as ADMIN, right? i think if you do that it might show the permissions on it. mine doesn't show a tab either, but go in safe mode and check it from there, i think it will show up then.

cd

jweather73

Now why would I want to do that? The point is, I need what's inside the folder.

jweather73

Yes I did, and no it doesn't. No matter what I do, this one particular folder will NOT show the tab--all the other folders do without doing anything special.

CD27

i will put mine in safe mode and see how it works.

cd

CD27

i don't know what's wrong, honestly. I booted into safe mode and mine shows the security tab.

don't do anything with what i'm about to share unless someone else says it's ok? alright, because i really don't know if this is what you need, but i've been posting it a few times because it really saved my computer's life once and it works real well as a registry restore. but it's all manual.

Unable to create a System Restore Point!!!

the next QUALIFIED person who views this thread, please give the ok for this, alright?

cd

grimx133

This might be a shot in the dark, not sure about permissions and such,
but, can you access the folder at a command prompt? If you can,
why not just copy the files to another directory/folder.

jweather73

Trust me -- I'm more than qualified. ;-) And no, I'm not just one of those people that think they know what they're doing.

I've had to do this many times to recover corrupted registries. And some of it won't apply since I don't have System Restore enabled (it's a worthless utility for someone that really knows what they're doing since it doesn't actually fix problems.)

I will try this as a last resort though.

CD27

Edit: I'm sorry, I have to act as if the person I'm talking to really doesn't know much about computers, because if i assume they do know alot, then it's my butt and causes alot of trouble if they DON'T know what i'm talking about. My appologies. I'll leave the text following for you anyways :P. Good luck!

good idea grimx. (boy i wish windows had a sudo command lol). The system restore point is supposed to pull it back so that you will have at some point in your computer's history a time when you COULD access the folder, but I just don't know about it, i don't trust this as much in your position, because this is a ONE TIME thing. restoring the registry in this manor moves everything back. once it's done, it's done, there is no turning back. so if it messes up, then you've lost all chance of ever getting back to the point you are now (unless of course you SAVE and DOUBLE SAVE the living heck out of your original registry files, so don't delete them. make sure if you do save them, save them on an external device, NOT the computer itself, because anything on it will be reverted.

now remember, this is a LAST RESORT ONLY option. We're going to try our hardest to see if we can open that folder for you, but i'm going to tell you right here and now, you simply can't do it unless you in Safe Mode and in the Admin user (if you have an "administrator" user account, DON'T use it in Safe Mode, because you won't have admin rights that way. use the one called Admin. that is SUPPOSED to give you the security tab in safe mode for that folder.

That's why i'm pressuring you to do that, because you need to know that you can't access the folder normally, you MUST be in safe mode.

cd

jweather73

ok, well, I finally figured out the answer.

Thanks to grimx133 and bluesrocker (and anyone else that brought it up.) I didn't think about the command prompt at first. So, here's the issue:

I thought I had Vista on this drive and then put it back to XP...but as it turns out, it was still a Vista drive. Vista does not use the "Documents and Settings" folder anymore as XP did. Instead it uses it as a <JUNCTION> to the new "Users" folder.
I noticed when I went to the command prompt and did a 'dir' that the folder was hidden.
When I right-clicked it in Explorer and looked at the properties of the folder, you can NOT uncheck the hidden attribute -- however, you can unhide it using the "attrib" command in a command window.
When I did that, it magically showed up and showed <JUNCTION> rather than <DIR> like all the other ones do.

That's when I got the reminder that Vista uses that folder as a pointer, or as a "junction" to Vista's new "Users" folder.
So, sorry to lead everyone on a wild goose chase, but at least we can all chalk it up to experience -- one I won't forget (again.)

Thanks for everyone's advice!

CD27

See, now that's something I didn't know :P. Great! Problem solved!