can not access old files in win xp

[dirtycrow]

ok, i think i'm in a bad pool of poop.

i had to reformat my win xp rig. i had a couple of hd drives. one of them contained a folder which was basiclly the my documents folder. i had it set up as a private folder. lo and behold when i attached the drive to the new pc set up i can not access the folder. how do i get into it?? everything important to me is in that folder.

is there anyway to get the system to prompt me for my old password??

thanks and i'm praying someone has an answer for me other then i'm out of luck.

thought i should add more info.
clean xp install. ntfs. logged in as an admin, but not THE ADMIN account first created. error - access denied.

i've forgotten how to log in as an admin, f8?

but the account i created is an admin account. i do not get access. the account a created appears to have full rights. it is a stand alone PC.

[QCH2002]

In XP with the pretty login screen... hold the Ctrl + Alt + Del keys for a few seconds and the default login screen changes to the network login look. Type administrator and the password. It may be blank, by default many are.

As for the file issue... Sometimes the permissions get fubared and need to be reset. Right click on the backup drive and select Properties... then the Security tab. Then at the bottom, click on advanced. Either add a new group called EVERYONE and give it FULL CONTROL. If the hard drive and file system haven't been messed up, this will allow you access to the hard drive.

[primesuspect]

does your new account have the exact same password and username as the old one? Making a folder private means you turned on encryption, and the Windows EFS is pretty tight.

[Mancabus]

Most likely you are out of luck, unless you can break 128 BIT encryption. Your username gets a unique security identifier (SID) when you first create the account, so If you reinstall you get a new SID with your new account. When you encrypt something it is only accessable to the original SID.

Although there may be some linux tool that can enable you to at least move the data out of that encrypted folder.

[Black Hawk]

Actually there is a way and it took me a awhile to figure it out but I think it's simpler now. All you gotta do is: open a folder -> tools (filemenu) -> Folder options -> View (tab) -> Uncheck "Use simple filesharing" (last option). Now extract the file that's attached to the post to a folder. Go to run type in "x:\<folder that it's in>\takedown.exe <folder that's locked>". Example would be C:\Temp\takedown.exe D:\Documents\Pr0n (;D). After that you should be able to view the contents of the folder. Just move the contents to another folder and delete the original folder. Theoretically it should work but I've never tried it. I had to do it the hard way (fiddling with the security options of the folder). Hope that helps :)

[dirtycrow]

thank you all! it worked.