Hi everyone,

heres the story,

Ive been trying to build my sister a new computer using some old computer parts. I've found out by switching her older hard drive to my computer that the computer will not boot up with that hard drive as the only hard drive and master drive. It will tell me that it had some errors and to choose to boot up normally, safe mode, safe mode with networking, etc. then it goes to a quick blue screen and restarts.

I then set it just as a secondary drive so I could get my little sister's story that she's been writing (she loves to write =) ) and then format the drive and at least see if it'll work that way, that file is very important to get first, she's put a lot into it and I dont think she has a backup.

Thing is, when i try to go to documents and settings and go into her folder so I can get it it'll say that access is denied. Now this is probably because she normally has a password set to log into her name. We have the password, we just wanna access the folder.

Any ideas on either accessing the folder somehow or getting the drive to boot up. I've tried virus/spyware/adware scanning the drive, running a check dsk, etc. and it still wont start up either. Help! Thanks!

It's really hard to give advise, because I don't want to be responsible for your sister losing her story.

Getting into documents and settings is really hard, because it has file protection by default. You are looking at cracking tools I would of thought to get in there.

My only finding, is that if you set up the Harddrive you want to access, alone in your PC, then insert the Windows CD from that installation, you could do a Windows repair, which would reset all HAL (Hardware Abstract Layer) information, which contains the OS's hardware configuration.

I don't know how well that is likely to work, maybe someone could back me up on that.

Whats the blue screen error you're getting when your old hard drive boots up..

Its not a tough task, nor does it involve cracking tools. You just need to reset the NTFS access permissions. Right click the Documents nb Settings (DnS henceforth) folder and choose properties. Click on the Security Tab and click advanced. In this new window, click the "Owners " tab. Double click "Administrators" in "Change owner to". and select the check box below it(I dont remember the words, but it means you want to replace the owner on all objects below this folder). Now click OK thrice to exit the folder properties. Now, again right click DnS and choose properties. Select the security tab and click advanced. In the window that pops up, click on add. In the window that pops up, type "everyone" and click OK to exit the properties. Now you'll be able to access the files

If you have any problems, let me know...