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Copy Protected Documents and Settings Data From A Hard Drive

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After my motherboard went out, a computer repair center will be replacing the board and reinstalling Windows XP for me. In order to back up my recent data that had not been backed up, I connected my hard drive to another computer using an IDE USB adaptoer to recover my recent documents before the repair center reinstalls Windows. Although I could copy the Shared Documents under Documents and Settings, Windows will not allow me to copy protected users'document files under Documents. Is there a work around for this?

7 replies

by jexmeistah

I'm having the exact same issue. My laptop just died, so my thought was that I could put my hard drive into my friend's laptop, which is identical to mine, but that plan fizzled out when hers died too. So I bought a hard drive enclosure, and now it won't allow me access to My Documents because my profile had a password. Any ideas?!

by quick\help

Same problem, password protected an account and now i need to backup the original files to another install (same computer)

Step to take; (this is the easy version)
1. Rename the pc as in the previous install
2. Make/rename and admin account as the previous
3. reprotect files with same password
4. Try to access the protected folder account on the USB drive.

if this works i'll let you know, in the mean time cross two fingers for me

by chezflamo

I have the same problem, but the Windows SYSTEM32 folder was trashed by a virus and cannot boot, so i have made it a slave

I cannot access ONE user profile on the slave as it was password protected when running Windows, now just as slave and no way to enter password

HOW can I open these docs in this user profile while attached as a slave

As a worst case scenario, could I put it back in other machine and run a repair install or would I risk losing all of the windows folders like it told me before?/

J

by charliespencer

Install it as a master, boot off it, log in as the local administrator, change the password on the relevant user account, log in as the user.

by the_immoral_immortal

ok well i partitioned my hdd and then it refused to let me delete my c partiton for no reason well ive deleted the other three partitions but it wont let me format the c drive and i really have to but my files had a password at one point but not when i installed over the old install and now it wont let me delete the files from that user account ive already managed to get what i want to save but i really have to delete that partition so i can have a clean c drive any help wiould be awesome been trrying to find a work around for some weeks now thx

by chezflamo

As i stated , the drive was trashed and will not boot. I have moved it to another machine which loads windows & this is slave, to transfer files over, but I cannot open or copy ONE user file as its password protected previously???

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