Changed PC - locked out from my external HD :-(

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Guest

Yesterday my laptop running Win2000 finally connected to The Great Heavenly
Network and died. No big deal, I thought, as all my important stuff was on
the external HD.
I borrowed an XP-based machine, but now I can't access the volumes on the
external HD, because on my late machine those were restricted, and only
available to me as Administrator. I have full admin rights on this machine,
but I can't figure out how to access the ext HD. I tried changing the
"Administrator" password to the one I had on my old machine, only to find I
can't log in as "Administrator" on this one (At least, I guess, not without
deleting all other users, which I suspect would kinda make the owner of this
machine cry and maybe utter harsh words).

Suggestions, anyone? I'm an experienced 2000 user, but an XP rookie...
 
eovti said:
Yesterday my laptop running Win2000 finally connected to The Great
Heavenly
Network and died. No big deal, I thought, as all my important stuff was on
the external HD.
I borrowed an XP-based machine, but now I can't access the volumes on the
external HD, because on my late machine those were restricted, and only
available to me as Administrator. I have full admin rights on this
machine,
but I can't figure out how to access the ext HD. I tried changing the
"Administrator" password to the one I had on my old machine, only to find
I
can't log in as "Administrator" on this one (At least, I guess, not
without
deleting all other users, which I suspect would kinda make the owner of
this
machine cry and maybe utter harsh words).

Suggestions, anyone? I'm an experienced 2000 user, but an XP rookie...
Click to expand...



How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&Product=winxp
 
Thanks, but that won't do. Problem is I can't rightclick any files or
folders, because I can't access the volumes themselves. In theory, of course,
I could backup the contents of the whole drive and restore it somewhere else
(I've tried this on a small scale, and it works), but we're talking 200G
here, and I don't have access to that kinda free space, not even for
temporary storage.
 
....as to WHAT I actually did, but suddenly the "Security" tab on the locked
volumes appeared (it wasn't there before), and I could claim ownership. Day
saved, case closed :-)
 
eovti said:
...as to WHAT I actually did, but suddenly the "Security" tab on the
locked
volumes appeared (it wasn't there before), and I could claim ownership.
Day
saved, case closed :-)
Click to expand...

Yep you needed to disable Simple File Sharing in XP Pro. You can't do that
in XP Home edition, so you would have needed to boot into Safe Mode in that
case.
 
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