ntfs file access

OK ... here is the problem. I want to access files on a drive that crashed. The OS is XP (can boot to either home or pro).

what happened:
I was online (dsl) and network connection slowed to a crawl. I decided to do some clean up stuff (adaware, clean reg, defrag, etc.). Somewhere along the line either from a 'hack', a 'virus/worm', or through my stupidity (like cancel an sfc, or chkdsk) the mbr got corrupted. I ended up with a screen that said "unknown hard error" (the code was something like c00021a, or something to that effect). I tried the repair utility from both the first screen of the boot to CD, and from the one a page or two in, and was not able to fix the problem. I bought a new drive, thinking that the drive itsself had gone bad. (I needed more HD anyway). I was able to recover all the info outside the "Documents and Settings" folders (although I had to use the cacls command to get some of it).

The problem:
Please don't lecture me on "backing up your files". I am fully aware of that issue, and normally do it on a weekly basis. The problem is, this happened last sunday, and before I did my "Sunday night backup". And since my email is inside the "documents and settings" folder, there is a weeks worth of addys and mail that I can't access. To be honest, when I do my backups, I often forget to backup the email. So.... there is about a months worth of email that I can't access. (along with a couple files on my desktop)

hardware specs:
Dell P4 1.6
Drive that crashed: Maxtor 20 Gb. (OS is ntfs)
New drive I installed: WD 60 Gb. (OS is ntfs)
New drive is master, moved old drive to slave.

Steps I've taken:
I set new drive to boot xp pro
I got the old drive up and running and able to boot to xp pro in a seperate windows folder.
I re-installed windows home edition to the windows folder.
(this created users with extensions - example: instead of the "all users" I now have folders named "all users", "all users.xp" and "allusers.xppro")

I was hoping that MA, Kodo, Goldfish or one of the other major geeks here could help me out with a quick fix.

Thanks a bunch,
Ched

 

Hey Ched,

I'm not the master hardware master...thingy...person... anyway. Maybe this is what you mean by setting up your old harddrive as a slave drive, but normally what you could do is setup your old harddrive as an additional drive letter in your "My Computer" folder. Essentially your old drive will no longer be booted from and will be purely a data drive. I did this with an old harddrive on my laptop using a USB2 caddy and grabbed all my old files off of it onto my new harddrive.

With this solution you don't need to reinstall windows on the old drive or do anything else special other than make the drive letter and access. There are various ways of doing this, however they're probably more fitting for the hardware forum

ciao!
o Draith

 

Thats what I've done before. Works great!!

 

If tis just the MBR thats messed you should be able to do that, although it soudns like you have that done already. Theres soem drive recorvery tools in MG frontpage sections. try them

 

If tis just the MBR thats messed you should be able to do that, although it soudns like you have that done already. Theres soem drive recorvery tools in MG frontpage sections. try them

 

I was leary about saying that he had done that already, because his operating system changed the names on those directories in the documents and settings directory in his old drive. The only time I've come across this is when a separate windows installation is installed on the drive. such has happened to me before when i was trying various ways of reinstalling windows while keeping the old settings. This does not occur if you merely plug in your old harddrive as a separate letter (or whatever the means is better called).

So I'm getting the impression that as a slave drive, the windows operating system is also reading system settings off of that drive as well. which you don't want. It should be solely a peripheral drive with no settings read off it. Just pure data storage.

o Draith

PS - I don't think I put this out too eloquently ... maybe someone who understands somewhat of what i wrote could helpme out?

 

im a little confused but i'll try and tell you what i think you might want to know..

I see that youve got the drive installed as a slave, can you get data from it at all? If so have you got the jumpers set up properly? this might be odvious but ive done it before and its irritating. If you can access the drive, and still cant get data from it, try a chkdsk on it? or maybe a 3rd party disk checker from here.. i have to say i dont use them often so i cant point you towards anything recomended.

hope this helps a bit

 

yes - the drive in question is installed as a slave, and I was able to recover all the files in the directories that I created. The problem is accessing files inside the Documents and Settings folder. I have been able to get to the main folder, and other folders inside such as All Users.

I am trying to access the files in Directories and Settings\ched (that was the administrator login for the computer before I installed the new drive) I tried to drag the whole folder to the shared folder - it told me access denied.

I shared the drive, tried to share the Documents and settings\ched folder, it said access denied.

I did try the calcs command from the command line inside the Documents and Settings folders, but am still gettting Access Denied errors when I try to access the subfolders such as Local Settings, Desktop, etc.
(D:\Documents and Settings\ched\Desktop for example)

I did download some of the recovery stuff from here, and will try them if all else fails. Although I have recovered the majority of stuff, I have neglected to back up my email address book to a wab file, and there were a few text documents on my desktop I'd really like to get back if possible. If I can recover those, then I'll just sigh with relief, copy them to CD, then format the drive and move on.

 

Since you are Administrator on the new installed WinXP Pro machine then you can take ownership of files/directories in question.

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

After taking ownership you can do whatever you like with the files.

 

oh i see what your problem is! my idea was absolutley no use whatsoever!

umm, you know im not so sure that NTFS surrenders its info to anyone who calls themself administrator. Sureley not, that would be a big big big security flaw......

well let us know if it works

 

Goldfish:
NTFS will surrender ownership of any files that are not encrypted. Files that are encrypted in NTFS cannot be opened without using the certificates that are located on the machine. SO if you ever encrpyt something in xp, make sure you backup the keys!!

 

yes .... I have been successful for the most part. I'll have to retrieve a few email addys from mail that was sent or received since just telling OE where the folder was did not populate my email addresses from the previous accounts - but that's such a minor problem now that I can get to the files.

The "ownership" was the big thing, and once you kind folks pointed me in the right direction, I was off and running. Once snakefoot suggested I look in that (ownership) direction rather than just the shareing, security, and cacls things I was trying - everything fell into place. The two things that were giving me problems were:

To take ownership of a file if you boot XP home edition is: you have to start in safe mode to get to take ownership.

In the XP pro version, I had to turn "OFF" simple file shares (which is enabled by default)

Thank you all again, now I can dump this stuff to CD, format, do a clean install, and I'll have a really cleaned up freshly installed system with enough room to last me a while.

 

if you want your address book then search all files for *.wab then import in OE.