Posted on 10/01/2009 4:07:47 PM PDT by MeneMeneTekelUpharsin
Freepers. Please help. I have a hard drive which came from a crashed motherboard comptuer. It allows me to access all folders on the hard drive when set as a slave, but will not let me access the owner folder telling me it has zere (0) bytes and is not accessible. However, Malwarebytes.org's program will scan the hard drive owner folder and shows all the subfolders and files to be there.
How can I can I open that folder to get those files? Thanks in advance, Freeper computer whizzes.
What operating system, what file system, and is the drive encrypted?
If this is Windows, you could try temporarily booting from a Linux CD (such as Ubuntu) and see if you can grab a copy of the files that way. You may have to mount the questionable file system read-only.
really....need.... more....... info
OS is Windows XP. Don’t know the file system and no, I didn’t encrypt the disk. The other folders (my wife’s files), etc. are all visible and accessible. Just can’t access “Owner” folder which has my pictures, videos, etc. I need.
If you right-click on the folder, do the properties show that it’s a hidden or system folder?
I agree. Use a bootable Linux Live CD with file copy software. Or connect it to another computer in a USB box or similar.
Disk commander will retrieve damaged and missing files, one way to get it is in a winternals emergency repair disk. Or check for disk commander downloads.
Home or Professional?
Don’t know the file system
As far as *I* know, XP only supports (out of the box) two file systems: the "old" FAT/FAT32 and NTFS. Since you're getting locked out, I'm willing to bet that the drive is formatted with NTFS, and what's "blocking" you from getting access is NTFS security settings.
Did you try accessing the drive while logged in as Administrator (or whatever you renamed the admin account to, if applicable)?
You should also see post 4.
A friend had a similar situation, and CaboJoe's Microsoft solution didn't work... It seemed there was some corruption in the file system access control list. I was able to recover the needed data using the method that HiTech RedNeck recommended.
For about $25 you can pick up an external ATA/SATA drive to USB converter (I have this one) and you can boot off of a Linux CD or DVD in demo mode, mount the drive file system (read only) and copy the data across the network to another system.
Mark
Post #3 is your best bet to solve it. Especially if it’s Windows XP Professional, which it sounds like it is.
Have you tried navigating that folder from a command prompt, or only from Explorer?
Went to MS page as directed. Walked through all steps. Removed file sharing. Gave ownership to Administrator. Still will not allow me access to the folder. The files are there, Malwarebytes is scanning them. However, I still can not access the “owner” folder only on that hard drive. Very strange. Oh, and I’m using XP Profession OS.
Yes, a friend helped me try to remove security lock with attrib commands and that didn’t work. Don’t have the other USB device at this time to try and read it. I’ll see what I can get done.
Sorry...ignorance prevails. Can you give me the steps to do the above? Don't have Linux CD and don't know much about that.
Ubuntu Live CD instructions: https://help.ubuntu.com/community/LiveCD
Puppy Live CD instructions: http://www.puppylinux.com/cd-puppy.htm
It says it's a "Read-only" folder. The files are there...I know they are there. Just can't get to them. Frustrating.
Not sure what you mean by "other USB device". If you open a command prompt and cd to that drive and try to do a dir on that folder, what do you get?
I went through with a friend’s help and got the permissions assigned to me (a bit complicated, but we got it)through the XP settings and accessed the files. Thanks everyone.
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