"Access is denied" XP

I was hoping if anyone could tell me how to get into the "my documents" folder through DOS. Here is the situation: I have a laptop which hard drive failed and will not boot up into safe mode or anything. The problem started when C_1252.nls was corrupted and needed to be replaced. I replaced the corrupted files, allowed windows setup to attempt to repair the OS, and by ran chkdsk /r. When running chkdsk I get to 75% then it drops to 50% ....looks like hard drive. When trying to boot normally I get the splash screen then the BLUE SCREEN OF DEATH. The only option I have is to run 6 boot floppies to get into the Recovery Console so I have the floppy drive enabled to save some docs. The problem is when I try and do a "cd Docume~1" I get an "Access is denied" in DOS. I can see all the folders by doing "dir \Docume~1\alexis~1\mydocu~1". Unfortunately the OS(Windows XP Home Edition) is running on an NTFS partition. My goal is just to be able to access the My Documents folder so I can copy the files to a floppy or hopefully fix the whole OS.

 

make shure your logging in as administrator in the rc or you wion't have the right permissions to get in.

 

With the Recovery Console (which is not DOS - XP doesn't have DOS like 98 does), you're limited to accessing the C:\ dir and C:\Windows and its subdirs. Have you tried running chkdsk /r from the RC and what happens?

Since your partition is NTFS, you also can't use a DOS boot disk to access files on that partition.

I think your best bet is to do a repair install of XP by booting from the CD. Here's a how-to from MS on that, refer to "method 2." Your 'Documents' and other folders will be left intact.
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;315341

If this doesn't work, then I would suspect that your hard drive has a physical failure, and I'd suggest downloading drive fitness test diagnostic software from your laptop manufacturer.

 

Believe it or not, this doesn't mean the drive is bad....it means it is fixing things.

Gotta let it finish.

 

UPDATE:

I just repaired windows XP, but now it will not let me logon with any account. It says "applying personal setting" then it immediately logs off. It does this in safe mode is well with the Administrator account. This sounds shady to me. Has anyone heard of a virus doing this?

 

No.
Its registry damage and now that you did a repair install, its permanent.

Time for a new install...

 

I ran chkdsk /r last night and it finished. And still could not boot up windows or access the "documents and settings" folder in DOS. After repairing Windows, I have the unable to logon issue. Guess I'll have to take the hard drive to a shop to pull of some valued documents.

 

I am not familiar with Disk Commander. All I know is that the registry has corruption and I am not aware of any fix other than to replace the registry.

However any and every backup copy on the computer was wiped out by the repair install.

 

You could buy a new hard drive and install the OS to it then pull the documents off of the old drive. It will be cheaper than taking it to someone else to get the info off of it.

 

I thought of that earlier Wyatt but hes got a laptop

But he could get a convertor cable and put it as a slave to his desktop machine to see if he can pull his documents off it
http://www.cablesnmor.com/hard-drive-converter.html

 

I wish it was a desktop. Hmmmm that hard-drive converter looks interesting

 

I just ran into this post while searching for something related, anyhow it is probably too late in the game but wanted to inform you of a small program that creates a bootable DOS disk that allows you to access FAT, FAT32 and even NTFS partition and copy/move files from any partition to another so you can access and save them. This program is called READNTFS and the best part is free, I won't post a download link since download sites may become invalid, but by typing readntfs and doing a google search you could easily find some download sites...

 

This sounds similiar, NTFS reader for DOS here on MG http://www.majorgeeks.com/download2036.html