My Documents inaccessible on reinstalling WinXP

[rohithsharma84]

I had WinXP. I re-targeted My Documents to a folder called "Docu" on D:\
I had to do a fresh install of WinXP and as a result i lost C:\ contents. On completion, i tried to open D:\Docu but it said "D:\Docu is inaccessible. Access is denied".
I tried retargetting My Documents to this location but still it didn't open it.
I know it is occupying around 800MB (by checking mem status of drive, etc) which was around what it shold have been, so nothing is lost as such.
Can any thing be done?
Thx
Rohit

 

[sakumar79]

documents and settings are specified to each indiv user and when you reinstall, even if you use same user name, new folders are created. The old cannot be directly accessed if you did not take proper precautions...

Try to log in as administrator and then right click on the folder and select Sharing and Security. In the Security tab, press the Advanced Button. In the new dialog box that comes up, go to Owner tab and change the owner to Administrator. You should now be able to access the files in Administrator login. (you can set owner to anybody else also if you want).

Not sure, but I think you need WinXP Pro with setting of "Use simple file sharing" disabled in folder options.

Hope that helps,
Arun

 

[champ_rock]

it is to do with ntfs partition

 

[rohithsharma84]

Try to log in as administrator and then right click on the folder and select Sharing and Security. In the Security tab, press the Advanced Button. In the new dialog box that comes up, go to Owner tab and change the owner to Administrator. You should now be able to access the files in Administrator login. (you can set owner to anybody else also if you want).

Not sure, but I think you need WinXP Pro with setting of "Use simple file sharing" disabled in folder options.

Hope that helps,
Arun

well, i changed the owner to myself, but when i try to enable sharing the folder an error pops up saying :" An error occurred while trying to share Docu. Access is denied. The shared resource was not created at this time" i still can't access that folder!

Any other ideas? i did disable Simple file sharing, BTW.

Thx,
Rohit

 

[d]

if the methods suggested above don't work, use a windows 2000 installation cd and go to the recovery console. since win 2k uses ntfs, it'll be able to read into your folder....this is a security hole in winxp. you don't need a password or any priveleges. the catch is that it is a command line program.....and you need to type in the commands for each file.....plus wildcard(eg: *.*) commands are not supported - you need to copy the files one by one. i suggest you copy only necessary files and leave the rest. or if you have lots of time, install win 2000 and use the GUI .

 

[sakumar79]

Question 1, when u say that u change owner to urself, I assume that u have administrator priviledges right? If not, go through administrator login (available in safe mode)

Question 2, was there a check box that said something like "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"? If this was left unchecked, repeat the procedure with it checked.

Arun

 

[rohithsharma84]

Question 1, when u say that u change owner to urself, I assume that u have administrator priviledges right? If not, go through administrator login (available in safe mode)

Question 2, was there a check box that said something like "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"? If this was left unchecked, repeat the procedure with it checked.

Arun

Hot Damn! this worked...i dunno how i overlooked that check box.
Thx a 1,000,000!!

 

[sakumar79]

Youre welcome... BTW, I faced this problem a couple of years back... I searched Google groups and found a link to a Microsoft Support page that gave the above procedure....

Arun

 

[cybermanas]

May be the files are encrypted with a password.