How do I restore a damaged folder?

Solnyshko

Solnyshko

Solnyshko

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I had a system crash a while ago and was never able to boot again from the disk. I bought a new HDD, did a fresh install of XP and found that the corrupted disk appeared pretty much intact.

The only area that appears to be damaged is the C:\Documents and Settings\user directory

it is this folder (and its contents) I am trying to recover

clicking on it opens a popup declaring C:\Documents and Settings\user is not accessible. Access is denied.

any thoughts?
 
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hmmm... problem is on cursory examination the folder appears to be empty (0kb). Is this consistent with a read error? :-/

So right click>properties, security tab, advanced, owner tab, and then select from one of the two options in the list?

Current owner appears to be the same as that on my current installation...
 
Yeah I'm a little worried about overwriting any data (someone advised me to make a mirror of the drive using Encase which I think is a forensic recovery tool and a bit beyond my reach - before tampering at all with the original drive)

But changing permissions should be perfectly reversible, right?

Actually from the security tab rather than going into advanced (which offer two possible permision identities from a list) should be ussing Add to create a new permission?

(I hope that makes sense)
 
Ah this is interesting. On the security tab only two Group or User names are listed: S-1-5-21-1659004503-1123561945-725345543-1003 and SYSTEM but no administrator whereas if I rightclick on another user profile there is a third permission available, that of an Administrator....

hmmm.

2348733040_099e029a38_o.jpg


whereas this profile (also from the source disk) is accessible:

2348739556_4a962629b1_o.jpg
 
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right ok. but oddly if you look at the two following screengrabs I [HOWARD] already appear to be the current owner but this is not being reflected in permissions

2347917609_e8ca85a919_o.jpg



2348746890_087666e50c_o.jpg
 
Ok. Sorry for being a bit slow with this, I've never done it before! - what should i be entering in this field? It doesn't seem to be offering a suggestion - and the 'examples' make next to no sense to me!

2347956505_e53083364e_o.jpg


EDIT: ah figured it out! - went through Advanced....
 
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It worked! it worked!

for months I've been trying fix this with all sorts of recovery tools! I don't believe it! great, thanks mate :D

ended up using administrators/HOWARD (plural seem to do it)
 
right ok the saga isnt over. It appears I've only got partial control/access. It looks like I can only get access to the route directory but none of the subfolders. As you can see from the screengrab below by ticking the box (beside the cursor in the image) I've initiated this response.

Is it safe to click yes? It wont rewrite/reset the contents of all the user info???

2348035835_85615dddf2_o.jpg


this is open to anyone who's reading this at this time of night!

One last thing - This user profile was password protected when it was running as my boot system
 
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Ok brilliant. I'll start working through that.

re: password protected - I mean when I launched windows in the past I had a user password selected account, i.e I'd have to enter a pw to access windows as that user (which also happened to be the administrator account)

EDIT: but to reiterate my concern about losing data (which I know I'm getting paranoid about now) it's perfectly ok to go ahead and click YES in the above instance (pictured)?
 
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