Hi
Try this way
Disconnect both HDDs first
Connect the old HDD as master (don't connect the new drive as this time
Boot from the XP CD and perform a repair installation of XP
After XP installed successfully, check whether you can access the files
If you are able to boot but are not able to access some files it might be a file ownership issue
Note, file ownership and permissions supersede administrator rights. How you resolve it depends upon which version of XP you are running
For XP-Hom
Unfortunately, XP Home using NTFS is essentially hard wired for "Simple File Sharing" at system level
However, you can set XP Home permissions in Safe Mode. Reboot, and start hitting F8, a menu should eventually appear and one of the options is Safe Mode. Select it. Note, it will ask for the administrator's password. This is not your administrator account, rather it is the machine's administrator account for which users are asked to create a password during setup
If you created no such password, when requested, leave blank and press enter
Open Explorer, go to Tools and Folder Options, on the view tab, scroll to the bottom of the list, if it shows "Enable Simple File Sharing" deselect it and click apply and ok. If it shows nothing or won't let you make a change, move on to the next step
Navigate to the files, right click, select properties, go to the Security tab, click advanced, go to the Owner tab and select the user that was logged on when you were refused permission to access the files. Click apply and ok. Close the properties box, reopen it, click add and type in the name of the user you just enabled. If you wish to set ownership for everything in the folder, at the bottom of the Owner tab is the following selection
"Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," select it as well
Once complete, you should be able to do what you wish with these files when you log back on as that user
For XP-Pr
If you have XP Pro, temporarily change the limited account to administrative. First, go to Windows Explorer, go to Tools, select Folder Options, go to the View tab and be sure "Use Simple File Sharing" is not selected. If it is, deselect it and click apply and ok
If you wish everything in a specific folder to be accessible to a user, right click the folder, select properties, go to the Security tab, click Advanced, go to the Owner tab, select the user you wish to have access, at the bottom of the box, yo
should see a check box for "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects," place a check in the box and click apply and ok
The user should now be able to perform necessary functions on files in the folder even as a limited account. If not, make it an admin account again, right click the folder, select Properties, go to the Security tab and be sure the user is listed in the user list. If not, click add and type the user name in the appropriate box, be sure the user has all the necessary permissions checked in the permission list below the user list, click apply and ok
That should do it and allow whatever access you desire for that folder even in a limited account
After all, if you can now get access to all your files, update windows patches and install SP1
Reboot and then shutdown the machine
Connect the new HDD as slave.
Restart the PC, if windows can find the new slave drive without any problem, format and partition the slave drive to suit your own reqirements
Hope it helps
Pete
----- Drizzt Do'Urden wrote: ----
I used iolo technologies system mechanic to delete some
supposedly "unused" registry keys, needless to say my
system got messed up. So i installed a new OS on a new
Western Digital drive as my new boot disk, the only
problem is I cannot access the contents of my 250 gig
hdd. At first I thought the problem was that it was a
large HDD and needed service pack 1 for windows XP home.
But I installed that and it still wouldn't run. I tried
a few fixes but they didnt work either. I am convinced
it has to do with the fact when I tick properties, it
claims the 250 gig HDD uses the FAT file system, instead
of the NTFS file system that my working drive does. Is
there a way of forcing windows to recognize the HDD as a
NTFS file system as the drive was originally formatted?
(I never formatted it in the FAT file system.) Or am I
way off base with my conclusion? I know there must be a
way to resolve this with out having to format the drive
thus erasing all the contents.
