[Camaris]

I have three computers one is 6 years old, one is 3 years old and one is brand new.

The motherboard on my 3 year old one blew just before I managed to transfer all my data to my new one. I know, I know - Sods law.

So I took the hard drive out of my 3 year old dead computer and plugged it in as a slave on the 6 year old one. Both computers had XP on them and I was able to retrieve all the files in default/my documents (which is most of them).

Unfortunately I can not retrieve anything from my personal user/my documents directory. This is because access is denied when I try to drill down into the directory. I suspect this may be because I had a password set at the windows startup? I am pretty sure this is where outlook has stored my pst or ost files and it is this data that I really really need. Also on there is all my Limewire files.

Is there anyway I can access this directory? Obviously I know the password, but I dont know how to get the machine to prompt me for it.

I have already tried using the hard drive out of the 3 year old machine as the master hard drive but I can not get windows to complete the restore process doing this.

Help help help.

Many thanks in advance.

[philthomas]

It may just be a case where you need to take ownership .... see if this helps :

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

[serverguy]

If that won't work you could use something like Knoppix to copy your stuff from one HD to another.

[Camaris]

That worked. I dont know how to thank you enough.

You and this site are a God send.

Much obliged.

[Camaris]

For the record, it was the taking of ownership suggested by philtomas, though I'm sure the other suggestions would also have been helpful.

Thanks again