User file recovery after hardware crash

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Guest

One of my users' XP workstation crashed and cannot be started (cracked MBD).
I removed the SCSI drives and attached them to another system. All user
files are visible when logged on with the correct user ID and password.

However, when I copy the files to another drive, the copy process seems to
work fine but all folders seem empty of files when I try to retrieve them.
Folder properties, however, indicate the number of files and MB totals.

Please, someone help me and let me know what is going on and how to access
those files again - especially Outlooks .PST files?
 
elcay said:
One of my users' XP workstation crashed and cannot be started (cracked MBD).
I removed the SCSI drives and attached them to another system. All user
files are visible when logged on with the correct user ID and password.

However, when I copy the files to another drive, the copy process seems to
work fine but all folders seem empty of files when I try to retrieve them.
Folder properties, however, indicate the number of files and MB totals.

Please, someone help me and let me know what is going on and how to access
those files again - especially Outlooks .PST files?
Click to expand...

Check permissions and take ownership.

Right-click the folder with the files and left-click on Properties. Go
to the Security tab and click Advanced. You can take control of the
folders on the Owner tab. For the security tab to appear in a WinXP Pro
system, you must disable simple file sharing in the Control Panel>Folder
Options>View tab. For a WinXP Home system, you must restart in Safe Mode
and logon as administrator. More details here from the MS Knowledge Base:

Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP [Q308421] -
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

Security Tab

a. The drive must be NTFS
b. For XP Pro, in Folder Options>View uncheck 'Use Simple File Sharing'.
That is the level used in Home, and for some strange reason is on by
default in Pro, too.

How Do I Get the Security tab in Folder Properties? -
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_security_tab.htm


Malke
 
Thank you Malke - perfect advice - worked right away (actually in a Win2K
machine)!
Saved me a lot of work. Thaks again!!


Malke said:
elcay said:
One of my users' XP workstation crashed and cannot be started (cracked MBD).
I removed the SCSI drives and attached them to another system. All user
files are visible when logged on with the correct user ID and password.

However, when I copy the files to another drive, the copy process seems to
work fine but all folders seem empty of files when I try to retrieve them.
Folder properties, however, indicate the number of files and MB totals.

Please, someone help me and let me know what is going on and how to access
those files again - especially Outlooks .PST files?
Click to expand...

Check permissions and take ownership.

Right-click the folder with the files and left-click on Properties. Go
to the Security tab and click Advanced. You can take control of the
folders on the Owner tab. For the security tab to appear in a WinXP Pro
system, you must disable simple file sharing in the Control Panel>Folder
Options>View tab. For a WinXP Home system, you must restart in Safe Mode
and logon as administrator. More details here from the MS Knowledge Base:

Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP [Q308421] -
http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

Security Tab

a. The drive must be NTFS
b. For XP Pro, in Folder Options>View uncheck 'Use Simple File Sharing'.
That is the level used in Home, and for some strange reason is on by
default in Pro, too.

How Do I Get the Security tab in Folder Properties? -
http://www.dougknox.com/xp/tips/xp_security_tab.htm


Malke
--
Elephant Boy Computers
www.elephantboycomputers.com
"Don't Panic!"
MS-MVP Windows - Shell/User
Click to expand...
 
elcay said:
Thank you Malke - perfect advice - worked right away (actually in a Win2K
machine)!
Saved me a lot of work. Thaks again!!
Click to expand...

Excellent! I'm glad that sorted it for you. Thanks for taking the time
to post back.


Malke
 
Looks like I celebrated too early. I can now see the files, but when i try
to copy them to a different location I get an error message "access denied -
source file may be in use". But is is not in use. Any ideas?
 
elcay said:
Looks like I celebrated too early. I can now see the files, but when i try
to copy them to a different location I get an error message "access denied -
source file may be in use". But is is not in use. Any ideas?
Click to expand...

You could try them in Safe Mode. Otherwise I'd just boot with Knoppix
and copy the files to an external hard drive or flash drive and then
transfer them to the XP drive. Knoppix is a Linux distro that runs from
CD. Since it is Linux, it doesn't respect the Windows permissions and so
you can get around them.

I should point out that if these files were actually encrypted then
unless your user backed up the keys or set a recovery agent, the files
are effectively gone. It didn't sound like that from your description,
but I'm just saying...

Let me know if you need help with Knoppix.


Malke
 
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