Member Avatar for aninsomniacbite

I did an overhaul on my computer and saved my documents on to a disk because I just sent my jump drive through the washer machine.

Thinking my documents would be fine I restored the computer deleting everything on it.

To my surprise all my documents were still there. A couple weeks later I go to open my pictures to grab a picture and it gives me an error message I've seen before, only in a folder that I didn't need as much as My Pictures.

"C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures is not accessible

Access is Denied"

So I began researching it and haven't found a damn thing that can help.

So am I up chocolate river without a Popsicle stick and my pictures are gone... or can it be saved?

Please help... I'm desperate.

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Dani AI

Generated

A short expert summary and a practical path forward.

This symptom almost always comes from one of three things: NTFS ownership/permissions left over from the previous installation, files encrypted with EFS whose private key is no longer available, or file-system/media corruption (especially since the burned disc was reported as corrupted). The quick checks below follow the same ideas hinted at by and the backup/shortcut checks from and . For EFS background and recovery requirements, see Microsoft’s EFS recovery guidance. (learn.microsoft.com)

First step — confirm the pictures actually exist on the hard drive (don’t trust the desktop shortcut or burned disc). From an elevated Command Prompt list everything and reveal hidden/system attributes:

dir "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures" /A /S
attrib -s -h "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures\*.*" /S

If files appear in the listing but Explorer shows “Access is denied,” the problem is almost certainly ownership/permissions.

If ownership/permissions are the issue: either use Properties → Security → Advanced → Owner to replace owner on subcontainers, or use the built-in tools to reclaim ownership and then grant full control. Example commands for an elevated prompt (Vista/7/10+ will accept these):

takeown /f "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures" /r /d Y
icacls  "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures" /grant Administrators:F /t /c

See Microsoft’s takeown and icacls documentation for details and options. (learn.microsoft.com)

If the folder shows 0 bytes or files are missing/corrupt, check and repair the filesystem before attempting recovery (example: chkdsk C: /f /r — schedule at reboot if needed). If the burned disc is the only backup and is damaged, consider sector-level recovery tools (PhotoRec/TestDisk or Recuva) and always recover files to a different drive to avoid overwriting data. For chkdsk usage and recommended recovery tools, see Microsoft’s chkdsk docs and the PhotoRec and Recuva pages. (learn.microsoft.com)

Recommended order: (1) confirm files exist with dir/attrib; (2) try ownership+permission fix; (3) run chkdsk if the filesystem looks damaged; (4) use file-recovery software only after imaging or when repairs fail. If the files were encrypted with EFS and no keys or recovery agent exist, decryption is not possible without the original keys — that scenario needs the EFS recovery procedures above. (learn.microsoft.com)

Recommended Answers

All 10 Replies

Member Avatar for nanosani

aninsomniacbite, if you are using NTFS file system, then you can open your folder by giving yourself all the permissions. See this article if it can help you:

Member Avatar for caperjack

I did an overhaul on my computer and saved my documents on to a disk because I just sent my jump drive through the washer machine.

Thinking my documents would be fine I restored the computer deleting everything on it.

To my surprise all my documents were still there. A couple weeks later I go to open my pictures to grab a picture and it gives me an error message I've seen before, only in a folder that I didn't need as much as My Pictures.

"C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\My Documents\My Pictures is not accessible

Access is Denied"

So I began researching it and haven't found a damn thing that can help.

So am I up chocolate river without a Popsicle stick and my pictures are gone... or can it be saved?

Please help... I'm desperate.

so why not just use the disk you copied your my documents to .the my documents folder contains the picture folder as well ,as long as you copied it right, and not just the shortcut on the desktop .

Member Avatar for nanosani

oops casperjack .. thanks for pointing out .. sometimes we forget some common sense things and get involved into fairly technical ones .. and the solutions seem to be with common sense things :-)

Member Avatar for bobbyraw

for his sake i hope you are not correct caperkack. because if he only copied, by creating a shortcut then he is in deep you know what. check the file that are saved on the drive and ensure that the little shortcut arrow is not on the files. and follow the advised nanosani post to take permission of the folder that your are getting assess denied on.

Member Avatar for caperjack

for his sake i hope you are not correct caperkack. because if he only copied, by creating a shortcut then he is in deep you know what. check the file that are saved on the drive and ensure that the little shortcut arrow is not on the files. and follow the advised nanosani post to take permission of the folder that your are getting assess denied on.

if you put the mydocuments icon on the desktop, using desktop setup it has no shortcut arrow ,but i have see people burn it to cd thinking they were burning there mydocuments folder .not so ,you need to go to documents and settings in the root of c:\ or use windows explorer to drag and drop it to a device

Member Avatar for aninsomniacbite

I all ready tried taking back the file, I click properties and I don't even have any of the stuff it says I should.

And I burned the folder on to a disk, but the disk is corrupted. I thought I made that clear, sorry :(

Also when I click properties it says there is nothing in it, or 0%.

If I've lost my pictures... I don't know what I'm going to do.

And for your info, I'm not a "he" just to let you know.

Member Avatar for caperjack

I all ready tried taking back the file, I click properties and I don't even have any of the stuff it says I should.

And I burned the folder on to a disk, but the disk is corrupted. I thought I made that clear, sorry :(

Also when I click properties it says there is nothing in it, or 0%.

If I've lost my pictures... I don't know what I'm going to do.

And for your info, I'm not a "he" just to let you know.

ok not a he .lol
I re-read your first post and im still confused ,but remember im over 50 so the thinker is not what it use to be ,
anyway this part confuses me ,

when you say to my surprise the file were still there

do you mean on the computer hard drive after you reloaded windows .

Member Avatar for aninsomniacbite

Thanks.

Yes on the cpu hardrive. I was surprised to find "my documents" still in tact all though everything else on the computer was gone.

I expected everything, include that to be gone, but it wasn't.

Member Avatar for caperjack

Thanks.

I was surprised to find "my documents" still in tact all though everything else on the computer was gone.

.

never heard of it and cant see how it could be ,if you formatted and reloaded winxp ,and everything was gone but mydocuments ., can't see how that could be !

Member Avatar for aninsomniacbite

I don't know man, there was a problem during the reformatting.

I guess I'm just gonna have to deal.

Thank's ya'll.

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