Hard Drive Crashed - Document Recovery

I have a laptop with a crashed hard drive. I bought a USB to SATA/IDE Adapter to copy the documents from the hard drive so I can reinstall Windows. The repair option will not work. There is a user on the hard drive that was password protected, and I can't access those files. Is there any way I can gain access to those? The computer will not start so I can't get in to change the password.

Thanks for any help you can offer!

 

Sometimes you can do a fresh install of Windows on a new HD, add the same user name and install the same password. Then add the second HD and try accessing the protected folder.

If windows just wont allow you to access the folder on the second drive but it wasn't password protected, booting a Linux Live CD such as Knoppix may be able to access the data.

 

I did this, and it still won't give me access to the protected folder. Any other ideas?