Getting data off an XP disk

[tim123]

Not sure what to call this, but...

My laptop has died and I've taken the disk out and put it in a USB box so that I can read it as an external drive (as has been recommended and worked fine when using previous versions of Windows). Unfortunately, I currently only have a Win 2000 machine to connect to.

I can read the root directory and all of the 'system' stuff but when I go to the 'My documents' section (which is really at X:\ Documents and Settings\) I get a message telling me that the directory cannot be accessed (I get a German message which I have loosely translated, so I don't know exactly what the English OS would tell me.)

Is this just a problem with Win2000 (I tried with Dos as well and got a similar problem) or is there some other reasons why this might happen (I can think of three or four possibilities).

Anyone any ideas as to how I might be able to fix this problem so that I can read this section of the disk and retrieve my 'own' data?

I'm quite happy to go and buy a 'disk doctor' prog if anyone is sure that this will work.

Ta

timmy

[Mordac]

If the 2 machines were on the same domain, logging in with an admin account *should* let you access the data. (Several provisos here though, too many to list.) It doesn't sound from your description like you have this kind of setup, though.
If it was EFS encrypted, you're going to have real problems.
Otherwise it looks like you need an NTFS hacking tool, I'll see if I've got anything suitable in my collection and let you know.

[tim123]

thanks Mordac,

I forgot to say it's XP home version, can't see that there is such a concept as "same domain".

I've been playing with my work machine (XP Pro) and I can see all the files that "belong" to other users who have previously set up user accounts on it, it doesn't look like XP stops you doing this if there is no password on the local account (which there wasn't).

I can't really understand this problem, unless the whole disk is stuffed, but (without going into all the embarrassing details as to how my PC got killed in the first place) I'm pretty certain that this isn't the case.

tim

[CowboyBob500]

Go grab Knoppix - www.knoppix.org/ - It contains many tools to read data off a b0rked Windows installation.

Matt

[tim123]

Thanks guys for the suggestions. Someone else also suggested Knoppix.

However another person suggested getting my own copy of XP pro and logging on as an admin. Which (seems to have) worked OK.

And as per the previous suggestion I'm now copying my piccies and downloads into directories that are nowhere near the 'My Documents' folder (which ironically is what I used to do with earlier versions of Windows)

tim