Accessing Documents & Settings Folder

I have 5 sub-folders in my Documents & Settings folder. I am unable to acces the Owner account that holds all my files as the account holder name got deleted (I think...long story). When I try to access it I get the error message that it is not accessible....access is denied.

Suggestions please?

 

OK...fathomed out how to access it, but there is nothing in there. I had to do a system restore earlier, so where do all the files go when you do that? Are they permanently deleted, or hidden somewhere?

 

You might try taking "ownership" of the folder.

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Steve

 

Thanks Steve. I've managed to take ownership but nothing is in them anymore. I had to do a system restore earlier and that's when they went, I'm guessing. I'm just wondering now where they went and if it is permanent.

 

I already undid the restore and they still aren;t there. When the user account was deleted I did not have an option to delete/save files, so perhaps wrongly assumed I was not deleting them? I thought it was an option that came up... ?

 

A system restore would not empty an entire folder unless you went back to a date where the folder was empty.

What brought on the system restore? Did you have problems you were trying to fix.

Edit: If you deleted your own user account they could be lost. Try one of the recovery programs here to see if they are still on the drive.

 

Long story...having fun networking desktop and laptop, and wanted two accounts with same detail in order to network.

The restore point was one I made this morning, so there were definitely files in the folder then.

Any data recovery software recommendations there Birdbath? preferrably freeware?

 

Were you using the Windows file transfer, I'm not sure but they might still be in that program. Did you shut down during the transfer?

 

Nada, but then there never was. All my files were under c\doc....\owner-YOUR. XXXXXblah blah blah

 

This isn't a fix. But an explanation on what system restore does.

also....

Source: http://www.microsoft.com/technet/prodtechnol/winxppro/plan/faqsrwxp.mspx

 

I have not used this but it's worth a try.

http://majorgeeks.com/HDD_Scan_and_Restoration_Program_d4330.html

 

Nope, wasn;t using it.

 

Or this. See above

http://majorgeeks.com/FreeUndelete_d4407.html

 

Just did that.....the only things it did kick up were 0mb in size

 

or...

This is indeed a LOOOONG shot. But try this.

Click START, then RUN, then type in:

cmd (press enter).

Since you say, that the "owner" account is accessible, then:

type:

cd\documents and settings\owner (press enter).

Dir /ad (press enter) what do you get?

Or better yet, if you know that a .doc file is missing, you can use:

dir *.doc /s /p (/s = recursive directories..../p = pause between pages)

I've seen, where files have been hidden from normal windows, but haven't been hidden from "DOS"

 

Change the search criteria to Bytes or kB

 

Nothing. Tells me the directory is empty = 0KB

 

There's nothing there that is significant...looking for tons of photos, .docs and a few .xls files, bookmarks for Firefox etc. Seems the whole lot got wiped out.

 

Do you run XP Pro?

I think there is an option that might help.

If you do right click on the owner folder and go to properties then look if there is a previous versions option.

 

I run XP Media, so that option isn't an option, so to speak.

 

You might try this Lev, just another way that might solve the "access denied" thing.

Steve

 

Hi Lev,

I haven't been able to figure out from your posts if you deleted your docs. et al or if you caused them to be hidden. My guess (!) is that either they got renamed and that's why you can't see them, or that you accidentally destroyed the directory identifier. I seriously doubt they got deleted. I got someone to recover my hard drive after an accidental reformat (long story of doing one wrong thing after another) so I tend to be the optimist about recovering data.

The reason I thought about the directory problem, is because it happened once on a CD I burned. I put photos on it. Then someone put another set of photos on it and the first photos disappeared from the directory. Since it was a write-only cd, it was clear they were still on there. I don't know what this person did, but he managed to get the directory back to where he could "see" both sets of photos.

If you made a new owner named the same as the old owner, is it possible that the 0 mb you are seeing are in the folder belonging to the new owner?

abri

 

You could try restoration http://www.snapfiles.com/get/restoration.html

Not a great interface but it finds files that you don't even remember.

 

I just wanted to thank everyone for their support, advice and suggestions. I ran 2 recovery programs, and none of them found any files that I was missing. I've spent the weekend reconfiguring my laptop and restoring files from back-ups (thankfully...can't impress on those of you who aren't backing up to do so!). I've lost a few photos from early October and my bookmarks, but otherwise ok.

So, again, thank you all who helped