Member Avatar for Nemesis

My "hard drive" keeps restarting itself before it gets to the welcome screen. I can read the contents of the HD but I can not get access to my documents because it is denied. I dont know what else to do??

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A short, practical summary and next steps based on what happened here.

The “access denied” you saw when the drive was attached as a slave is usually an NTFS ownership/permissions issue: the files are owned by user SIDs from the original installation, so a different Windows installation sees them but won’t let you open them. (Encrypted files using EFS are a separate problem — taking ownership won’t decrypt those without the original certificate/key.) ’s approach of mounting the disk on a working machine and grabbing the files was the right idea.

Common recovery workflow (safe and repeatable): attach the disk as a secondary drive on a working Windows PC, log in as Administrator, then reclaim ownership and copy the data to external media. In XP you may need to turn off Simple File Sharing (My Computer → Tools → Folder Options → View → uncheck “Use Simple File Sharing”) so the Security tab is visible. Then: right‑click the folder → Properties → Security → Advanced → Owner → select an admin account or the Administrators group, check “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects”, Apply, then grant the account read/write permissions and copy your data.

Command-line options (run an elevated/admin prompt):

cacls "E:\Documents" /E /T /G Administrators:F

For newer Windows (Vista+):

takeown /F "E:\Documents" /R /D Y
icacls "E:\Documents" /grant Administrators:F /T

Use these with care and replace the path and account name as needed.

Final cautions and tips: if the drive shows read errors or the system repeatedly restarts before Welcome, hardware faults (failing HDD, bad RAM, PSU) or filesystem corruption are possible — image the drive first if you suspect hardware failure, then work from the image. Regular backups and an emergency boot/repair disk prevent urgent data-recovery rushes. The troubleshooting suggestions from , and (safe-mode checks, memory testing, PSU swap) are all valid ways to narrow the root cause.

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Member Avatar for caperjack

does it boot in safe mode

Member Avatar for GReddy4u

yeah, try in safe mode, or re-installing your operating system.

Member Avatar for Nemesis

Safe mode does not work and there is no Virus or trojans that can be identified. It's not the rest of the hardware because I installed another HD and it is working fine. I am really afraid of losing the work that is in my documents. I can read the HD by making it a slave but I can not get into to the folder because it gives me a warning that access is denied. I got in by booting up in Knoppix but I have a problem with saving.
Im lost!!

Member Avatar for caperjack

No guarentees, as it could be a couple things, but please do these:

Download the latest version of Ad-Aware at
After installing AAW, and before running the program, FIRST update the reference file following these instructions.
http://www.lavahelp.com/howto/updref/index.html
Now do the following:
- Under Ad-aware 6 > Settings (Gear at the top) > Tweaks > Scanning Engine:
check: "Unload recognized processes during scanning."
- Under Ad-aware 6 > Settings (Gear at the top) > Tweaks > Cleaning Engine:
Check: "Let Windows remove files in use after reboot."
Press "Scan Now"
- Check option "Use Custom scanning options"
- Check option "Activate In-Depth Scan"
- Press "Select drives\folders to scan"
- Select the active partition which is usually C:
Now press "Next" to let Ad-aware scan your drives...
It will find a number of "bad" files and registry keys.
Right-click in that pane and choose "select all"
Now press "Next" again.
It will ask you whether you'd like to remove all checked items. Click OK.
Finally, close Ad-Aware, and reboot.

Then:
Download 'Hijack This!'.
Unzip (extract) it to a folder of its own. Then Doubleclick HijackThis.exe (in the new folder), and hit "Scan".
When the scan is finished, the "Scan" button will change into a "Save Log" button.
Press that, then Ctrl-A to Select All, and copy its contents here. for hijackthis,most of what it lists will be harmless or even essential, don't fix anything yet.

Member Avatar for Dark_Omen

I had the same problem once. It turned out to be a bad power supply. And I guess the power would fluctuate.

Member Avatar for TallCool1

My hard drive keeps restarting itself before it gets to the welcome screen. I can read the contents of the HD but I can not get access to my documents because it is denied.

There are a couple of possibilities. One is a damaged Registry. You can boot from the XP CD (if you have the full version) and use the "repair" option.

If all you have is the so-called "restore" CD, I'm not sure how that would work, as I have not used one.

If you can boot from Knoppix, I don't think the power supply is your problem.

If you can't get into Safe Mode, your problem is most likely bad RAM. Try running MemTest86.

Member Avatar for Nemesis

Ok I am going to rephrase some of the words I have used..First I can not download anything to my hard drive because it does not let me use it. It keeps restarting on its own. Second I do have the full version of XP and I have gotten to the recovery console and I put in the Admin password but that is where I stay. I dont know what else to put in. It is not ad-ware because I already scanned the drive and there is nothing that can be detected. It is not the rest of the computer because I am using another HD and it is working fine. I have read the files off of another HD using XP but I can not get into the folder...access is denied! I dont know what else to do.

Member Avatar for Nemesis

What I ended up doing was making the drive a slave and went into safe mode on the other HD and went to the folder and took ownership under administrator and copied the files over to my files and saved them quickly to CD's. Thanks for the links and the help.;)

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