Member Avatar for ColMac12

Hi, i have just upgraded my computer to 64bit after my last computer failed on me, i think that in the process of my last computer failing, windows must have corrupt as i can't load up windows with this hard disk - i just get a blue screen error straight away after the windows xp loading bar comes up and the computer restarts itself. my old and new computer are AMD with ASUS mobo's, i tried the hard drive in an intel computer and had the same problem.

I have now installed windows on a different hard disk and have set the original as a slave, i can now access the drive, but can't retrieve all my documents, because being security concious i set some folders private, is there anyway i can get around this? also i had a lot of e-mails with outlook which i'd like to retrieve if i could.

Cheers for any help people!
Colin

- sorry for making you read loads!!

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Good call setting the old disk as a slave and getting partial access — that’s the right first step. There are two different reasons a folder can appear “private”: NTFS permissions (ownership/ACLs) or true encryption (EFS). ’s point about a clean OS after major motherboard swaps still stands if you ever want that disk to boot again. Make a full image of the drive before making changes so anything that goes wrong can be undone.

If the problem is NTFS permissions and you prefer a faster, scriptable route instead of many GUI clicks, Windows provides command-line tools to take ownership and grant access. Run an elevated Command Prompt (Administrator) and adapt the path and account names for your machine:

takeown /F "D:\Path\To\Folder" /A /R /D Y
icacls  "D:\Path\To\Folder" /grant Administrators:F /T

These are the supported modern utilities; older Windows (XP-era) systems may use cacls/xcacls instead — pick the tool that matches the Windows version you’re running. (learn.microsoft.com)

If the files are actually EFS-encrypted (green lock icon or “Encrypt” property set), those contents are tied to the original user certificate/private key — without that key or a configured recovery agent the encrypted files cannot be decrypted. If EFS is a possibility, extract any certificate (.pfx) from the old profile before changing anything, or you risk permanent loss. (learn.microsoft.com)

If you recover a .pst file for Outlook, don’t overwrite it — copy it to the new system and use the Inbox Repair tool (scanpst.exe) if Outlook complains about corruption. Open or import the repaired PST from Outlook (File → Open & Export → Open Outlook Data File). If the mailbox used an OST (Exchange/IMAP), you’ll generally need the original account/profile or a converter to extract mail. (learn.microsoft.com)

If the ACLs are stubborn, an alternate read-only approach is to mount the disk from Linux (ntfs-3g) to copy files regardless of Windows ACLs — note this bypasses ACLs but cannot decrypt EFS-encrypted data. ’s GUI fix and ’s pointer to PST-repair tools are good paths; imaging first keeps every recovery option available. (github.com)

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Member Avatar for Coconut Monkey

The reason Windows failed to boot previously is because of your drastic hardware change and not removing the old drivers beforehand. Regardless, it is highly recommended you reinstall Windows when swapping motherboards and/or video cards.

For retrieval of your old files, try this.

Member Avatar for ColMac12

Good Work! Thank you very much indeed!!

Member Avatar for goldeagle2005

I have now installed windows on a different hard disk and have set the original as a slave, i can now access the drive, but can't retrieve all my documents, because being security concious i set some folders private, is there anyway i can get around this? also i had a lot of e-mails with outlook which i'd like to retrieve if i could.

If by setting folders private, you mean setting up NTFS access permissions, you could recover your data. Right click the file/folder and click Properties. Click the Security tab and click Advanced. Click the Owner tab. Under "Change owner to", click Administrators (or whichever user/group you want to give ownership to). Now check the box labelled "Replace owner on all subcontainers and objects." and click OK twice to exit the file properties. Now, right click the file/folder > Properties > Security tab > Advanced. Now, under the permissions tab, click the button labelled "Add". In the box that pops up, type the user/group you want to give permissions to and click OK. Now, under the box titled "Permission Entry for [file/folder name], under permissions, give the required permissions (or give full control, depending on your needs).Click Ok thrice to exit the properties. You should now be able to access files.

Regarding your problems with MS Outlook, you need to open up the Documents and Settings folder in your old Windows installation. Go to the following path: "\Documents and Settings\<username>\Local Settings\Application Data\Microsoft\Outlook". Copy the file named outlook.pst to the same location in your new Windows installation. This should do the trick. If not, get back to me and we'll see from there.

Member Avatar for ColMac12

Thank you, works a treat, files and e-mails recovered!!

:)

Member Avatar for goldeagle2005

No problem. Glad to help.

Member Avatar for zxr

Hi,

If you had a lot of e-mails with outlook which you'd like to retrieve You can try a popular Outlook recovery tool called Advanced Outlook Repair to repair your PST file. It is a powerful tool to recover messages, folders and other objects from corrupt or damaged Microsoft Outlook PST files.

Detailed information about Advanced Outlook Repair can be found at http://www.datanumen.com/aor/

And you can also download a free demo version at http://www.datanumen.com/aor/aor.exe

Alan

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