[Sanguis]

Hi. Any solutions to the following would be greatly appreciated:

I am using Windows XP Home Edition. My user account is password protected and in "My Documents" I have several private (as in "not shared") folders, with no backup. Recently my windows died on me. It is impossible to start the windows installation in C:\WINDOWS\. Just as a means to evacuate my documents from the computer so that I may format C: and reinstall, I installed another windows under C:\WINDOWS2\ on the same partition. This sort of worked and by booting that windows I have now been able to find my old documents in C:\Documents and Settings\ and burn them on CDs. However, the private, non-shared folders in that folder I cannot get access to since I am not now logged on my old user account. The folders are all there but when I try to open them I get an error message saying "No Access".

Is there any way I can go around this? Is there a way I can copy a user account from one installation of XP to another? My user account from the old installation is a folder in C:\Documents and Settings\ together with my user account in the new installation. Can I make my new windows recognize both and give me the option to log on to either of them? Other ideas? All I need is ten minutes of access to these folders so I can make a backup. After that I will format everything anyway so it doesn't have to be a solid, permanent solution.

 

[Drupy]

You can take your xp operating system disk and boot from it. When it comes up go into the recovery console and choose the repair option. This should return it to a healthy status without deleting or changing your files. Hope that helped.

 

[Sanguis]

That would be the best solution - to restore the original installation. However, when I use the repair option as you say things aren't automatically restored to functional status. Instead I am prompted for a password and after that I am suddenly in a command prompt of some sorts, similar to MS-DOS. Can I use this to repair the installation?

BTW: Is it possible to log on to ones user account in command prompt? If I could, I could change the rights of the folders in question, sharing them.

 

[Pseudocyber]

Is your account the Administrator account? The admin account would have full rights to all files.

 

[Sanguis]

Both the account in the new and the old installations are administrator accounts, yes. But logging on as administrator seems to have no effect. I still can't get access to those private, non-shared folders.

 

[Pseudocyber]

Theoretically, if you are logging in with THE Administrator account, you should have access to all files on the box wether they are shared or not, wether they have access granted to the Admin or not.

You may have to right click on the folder and go into properties. Then there should be a security tab somewhere (don't know XP so well) and find where you can "take ownership". This should resolve the access issue.

HTH