Can I recover data from hard drive in broken PC?

londonman81

amcluesent wrote: »

>Am I missing something??<

Assuming you were using the NTFS file-system on the old PC, you may have to 'take ownership' of the User files/directories to make the content accessible.

>Where would I usually find folders which were previously on desktop?<

Depends on the OS used on the failed PC

Windows XP on old machine (and on other one too)

spakkker

I think that you have to go properties/sharing of the drive in my computer.

londonman81

amcluesent wrote: »

>Am I missing something??<

Assuming you were using the NTFS file-system on the old PC, you may have to 'take ownership' of the User files/directories to make the content accessible.

I'm not sure which folder to try and take ownership of, but I've tried doing it to one of them and it doesn't have a 'security' tab as mentioned in the instructions when i right click on its properties....

This folder seems to give "access denied" when I try to open it and is located under "F/:Documents & Settings/ myusername" - would this be the folder that contains all my old desktop etc?

Also - when I right click on the F drive it shows 170GB used with 600MB free which is pretty much what I had used when it was in the old machine - so the files must still be on the HDD somewhere right??

googler

An XP drive that I have installed as a secondary (was prev a primary) has a top-level folder structure of

Documents and Settings
My Downloads
Program Files
Windows

Documents that were under 'My Documents' or 'Shared Documents' are under the Documents and Settings folder, in folders with User Name as their name. Maybe under the Dell Folder on your drive. Explore your folder trees until you get to something similar to what I have.

googler

Sounds like you've found it - just need to research changing the folder permission(s) so you can explore it.

amcluesent

>This folder seems to give "access denied" when I try to open it and is located under "F/ocuments & Settings/ myusername" - would this be the folder that contains all my old desktop etc?<

Yep, that's the one you'll need to take ownership, but you'll need to be logged into your PC with Administrator rights as per the Microsoft help.

londonman81

I have found a folder which should contain some of my files but when I try to open it, the error 'access denied' comes up.

Then when I try to follow the steps to 'take ownership' as per the microsoft link above, I get no 'Security' tab option - only Sharing folders etc option which doesn't allow me to move the folder into the Shared Documents area because the 'access denied' problem.

JJ_Egan

The F drive contains Program Files, dell folder, driver folders etc while the 'Backup G' drive contains just three folders (containing almost nothing) along with an old pdf and an AUTORUN notepad file.

G drive >>That could be the hidden partition for a factory reinstall .

jje

londonman81

JJ_Egan wrote: »

The F drive contains Program Files, dell folder, driver folders etc while the 'Backup G' drive contains just three folders (containing almost nothing) along with an old pdf and an AUTORUN notepad file.

G drive >>That could be the hidden partition for a factory reinstall .

jje

Looks like my F drive contains around 170GB of data which is what I would expect - it's just a case of locating the files which I currently can't....

F:\ Documents & Settings \ myusername

This folder is not opening, giving "access denied" error.

Any clues?

googler

"If you are running Windows XP Home Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an account that has administrative rights in order to access the Security tab. "

From MS knowledgebase article 308421

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421