Swapping hard drives / Windows logon passwords...

[jmp_78]

A while back I had a Windows XP laptop which I set-up with a Windows password in order to login each time. When the laptop died and I plugged the drive (which contained the XP installation) into my Windows 7 desktop, it refused to read it because it was password protected on a previous machine.

Is this because the drive in question had the main Windows XP files on it?

If I bought a couple of storage drives ( say D: and E: ) and had them in my current Windows 7 PC, could I move them around between other machines? My current setup also had a Windows password requirement to login. I'm assuming the answer is yes as the Windows files would be on the C: drive.

Thanks

 

[thebigak]

It should display the files in explorer if the drive has detected and mounted correctly, and then it will block you from accessing the files stored under any profiles that were password protected. The way around this under Windows is to 'take ownership' of the folder. Google 'taking ownership Windows' and read some links. Or you could use a Linux box like I do to read NTFS drives and it will read any of the files without prompting for security or requiring you to take ownership of the folder...