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Recover Private Folder Files Win XP Pro?

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3 replies

by fwbennett

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I'm running Win XP Pro, and when I created the user it asked if I wanted to make the files Private - I said YES. Now either bacause of a Virus or Crash I've had to reload the operating system - I went with the option of writing over the existing OS (instead of doing a full format) in hopes of recovering SOME of the files that may be lost and weren't backed up! When creating the new user, my hopes were uplifted because it wouldn't let me create a user with the same name as the old one (or Administrator and Guest) I created another user, when exploring in the C:\Documents & Settings folder, along with the new user's file (and Administrator and the All Users) is the old user name folder (which would normally contain the MyDocuments, and Desktop etc. files) BUT I cant open it says "Not Accessable/Access Denied" Is that because on the previous install I asked for it to be private?Sooo my question is - how can I get to these files or even determine if there is valuable stuff there or it's hopeless?

3 replies

by coucha

If you are an Administrator on the computer, right click on the folder, click on Properties and go to the Security tab, Select Advanced button and go to Owner tab and choose yourself or Administrators as the Owner and check the Replace the owner on subcontainers and objects. Click OK. After it goes through that you will have access to the folder again.

Hope that helps!

by icreate

Go to Tools > Folder Options.
Under the advanced tab, somewhere (near the bottom I think,
can't check as reinstalling windows myself now) is a checkbox
labeled 'Use Simple Windows Filesharing' or something similar.

Uncheck that, and then go to the properties of the private folder.
Under the sharing tabs you can then change the folders
permissions to include your user account on the current
windows installation.

I can't remember off hand whether you need to share the folder
and set the permissions, or just set the permissions but I had
the same problem as you and that is the solution I used.

by divyadr

I was working on windows XP, while creating a user, i selected YES when it asked me to make files private. Now i want to restore it as it was before. i do not want the files to be private. so please help me out how to do it..

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