WinXP mydocs folder locked
 

OK here goes:

I had a good rig up and running, and then my mobo got ****ed, bios completely corrupt (reason still unknown). Anyway the shop couldn't get me another one within 4 weeks so they were nice enough to let me choose another mobo, so I picked an Asus P4C800-E Deluxe, now as you can imagine, booting winxp wouldn't work on another mobo... so on my C drive I installed winxp in another folder to backup my data on that drive...

only my docs folder ... (Documents and Settings folder) is locked, access denied ... since it was created by another windows install in another directory.

Anyone got any smart tricks to get the data in there? creating the same user in the newer install just creates a folder user.windows1 instead of dir user

help me out guys :(

update

is reinstalling windows in c:\windows and then making a useraccount with the same login/pass as before a good option or the best way to **** it completely?

Re: WinXP mydocs folder locked
 

you can try the first thing, maybe boot in safe-mode or somthing like that

doesn't work, if i create an account with the same username/password he makes a mydocs folder like user."PC Name".xxxxxxx

so he won't let me in that directory...

going in dos etc ?

Open explorer

go to c:\documents and settings

right click on the folder that you can't get into , select properties

choose tab SECURITY , click on ADVANCED,
choose tab OWNER, select your current administrator-username, check the box named "replace owner on..."


then click OK

TADA! :hello:

I know, but that's the whole point, it won't work.

If you install windows in c:\windows and you make your "My Documents" folder personal in WinXP (so that no other user can access it) and then your mobo is ****ed and you have a new mobo, you can't access that windows install.

Reinstalling windows in the same of another directory results in the same, you cannot access that directory, even if you use the same useraccount and password.

What does work is taking a backup of the folder you can't access, and then unpack the backup to another location and deselect "keep security settings/attributes" ...

Funny logic of Microsoft, but that way you can read every user's data on a pc, no matter if he has a personal folder or not...

taking ownerchip always works (experience)
make sure you follow the steps I outlined in my previous post

true it also works, but you have to switch off simplified file sharing (default) first.

but yep it also worked :)