hey everyone. this might be kinda lengthy as i try to explain what happened, so bear with me...

i have a 120 GB SATA hard drive that my friend put XP Pro on (not a legal copy...) well, windows update loaded SP2 on it and suddenly i lost my start bar and just a bunch of things weren't working. eventually i couldn't even boot my OS, it'd just go to the load screen, then go to the log on and just sit there without loading my user.

so i got a new hard drive, a 120 GB IDE, and i loaded an official copy of windows xp home on it. this drive works fine, and i got most of my files off of my old hard drive and on to this one. just one thing: i can't get into my old user on my old hard drive to get My Documents and such. my friend thinks its because i had the user password-protected. does anyone have any ideas of how i can get at those files?

thanks,
dan

Welcome to PCHF

Log into the PC as the "Admin" account.

The best way to achieve this is to take ownership of the folder - follow these instructions:

1.Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties.

2.Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears). If the security tab is not showing open Windows Explorer > Tools > Folder Options > view - scroll to the bottom of the list and un-check "use simple file sharing".

3.Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.

4.In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group. If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.

5.Click OK, and then click Yes when you receive the following message: You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?

All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes.
Note folder name is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of.

6.Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents.

Are you talking about Admin in Safe Mode? because i try to boot to safe mode and my keyboard stops working... its an apple usb keyboard, and it won't work when i try to do that

any ideas?

Never mind about the keyboard part, I was trying to get into Safe Mode the wrong way, instead of hitting F8. got in to safe mode, changed ownership, and i got my files back. thanks hengis!

-dan

Glad i could help! Make sure you bookmark us, hey and try to recommend PCHF when you can

Marked as [Fixed]