The motherboard on my work laptop died on me. The hard drive in it is still good just bad ram slots on the board so won't load up. I pulled it out of the laptop and hooked it into a extrenal usb hd enclosure to my home pc to pull the files i need off but the documents I need to retreive are in my documents and i had it set to where only I could view those files but I can't log into that account now I still know the password for the account but it won't give me the option to even put in a password. Is there any other way to access these files?

I'm not sure if this will work because i never tried it but go to How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP and try that.
This website also has an answer Guide: Bypass ACCESS DENIED error when accessing data from different XP/2000 install. - TechSpot OpenBoards . It is the same as the one above but someone put it into their own words.
Try the top option first and then if it doesn't work see if there are any tips in the seccond one.


If you have an os other than windows though you may be stuck

Hi there and welcome to PCHF what version of XP is it?

xp home with sp2 on both

Ok, on the one your having trouble getting into boot into Safe Mode, by tapping F8 on Startup, logon as the Administrator account, and then follow my guide: http://www.pchelpforum.com/tutorials...-password.html

for the account you wish to get into., and then reboot into normal mode

worked like a charm the first time thanks alot for all the help!!!

Marked as Fixed