Help me get my old my documents files

July 14, 2006 12:45 AM

My old Dell just died, bought a new toshiba, am able to get some but not all files from old computer. Help me get the rest!

My dad had one of those little turn-your-laptop-hard-drive-into-an-external-usb-drive thing, and I used it to get most of the files off of my old windows xp computer. However, I get to any of the files under my old username's my documents folder (C://documents and settings/username/my documents). This was the administrator account but it was also password protected, so I don't know. I found a tutorial at the windows help desk site that was far from helpful. They told me to turn of simple file sharing, which isn't even an option on any computer I can find. Thanks!

posted by MostHolyPorcine to technology (5 comments total)

Take Ownership of the files.
posted by majick at 12:49 AM on July 14, 2006

Alternatively, boot the computer using one of the live linux cd options, eg knoppix. That won't care about any of Windows' user permissions, etc. (If you need help with Knoppix, post here and either I or someone will point you to some tutorials.)
posted by inigo2 at 7:07 AM on July 14, 2006

"Simple File Sharing" resides in the Folder Options panel. From My Computer, go to Tools->Folder Options. IIRC, it's in the middle tab. When you disable that, Explorer will expose the advanced file security settings in the folder's properties that you will need to change in order to gain access to your old files. See this previous thread.
posted by phrayzee at 7:15 AM on July 14, 2006

(Should've previewed)
posted by phrayzee at 7:15 AM on July 14, 2006

You can reset the password on the administrator account by making a bootable Linux CD. Works a treat. I had to use it myself a while back.
posted by NailsTheCat at 9:31 AM on July 14, 2006