No access to user file?

I was trying to access a clients user file through a slaved in hard drive that wouldent load windows on his laptop and it is giving me the "access is denied" message when i went to access this folder in documents and settings. He says that he put a Password on the user and nothing else. It was an old laptop (about 3-4 years old) so i was thinking maybe he made his files private. Does anyone knbow a way around this? A little help would be really appricated. Thanks

 

I think this is what you need. Never used it myself but it is often recommended as a solution to your problem. Taking ownership of a file, the second part of the page, does not appear to need you to use safe mode as taking control of a folder does. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

 

What I do in this situation is boot to a PE CD (like Bart's or the UBCD4Win) and then copy the needed files to an external (or slaved) hard drive. Works like a charm! If the above link doesn't do it, go to http://www.ubcd4win.com/ and be sure to read the 'How To Build' section and print it out if at all possible. When you've studied the directions for awhile, grab your XP CD (not an OEM CD- no Dell, no HP, etc) and build/create the CD. It's loaded with some GREAT tools and it'll save your butt more than once, as it has saved mine!! It's basically a 'live' Windows that runs entirely from the CD; similar to Knoppix..... building the CD is a bit intimidating, but once you get it done, you'll be really jazzed!
Good luck!

hd2k

BTW- just ignore all the slipstreaming stuff mentioned at the UBCD site. You'll just want to build the basic CD from the 175mb download that's available at UBCD's web site. The slipstreaming stuff is a bit too much to deal with in your first build. The basic version has plenty of goodies, so you won't need to add anything custom (at least not right away).