Here's the breakdown:
Roughly 1 year ago, as I said then, my laptop up and died.
OK.
Now, I (after removing many screws to discover I only needed to take out 2 and pulling out more drives than I thought the thing had) have extracted the hard drive from my laptop.
I then inserted it into a device a friend of mine has that allows you to use a laptop hard drive as a portable hard drive that plugs into the USB
No problems so far, his computer recognized the device and we could browse...to an extent.
We cannot access G:/Documtnes And Settings/Owner. We think it's because I password-protected the laptop when it was alive. I know the password. Here's the issue: I need a way to open a dialog box that'll let me put in the password so I can access my files. Any ideas?
Safe Mode, perhaps? I remember having a problem like this in the past, and that was what was suggested to me.
Of course, I think there was something specific that one had to do, like log on as "Administrator" or something like that... it's been a while, so I'm a bit fuzzy.
Safe Mode, perhaps? I remember having a problem like this in the past, and that was what was suggested to me.
Are you talking about booting up the laptop? That's not even an option. The laptop is dead. When I say dead, I mean both the battery and the screen have long since bit the big one. Even when it was hooked up to the AC adapter, it wouldn't turn on. It's THAT kind of dead.
No, I mean the computer the hard drive is hooked up to now. I'm well aware that you cannot boot up a dead computer.
Make a "Owner" login on the computer it's hooked to and try to fool it. Barring that try to steal back rights to the folder via the security settings on it.
~Tobe
Issue resolved, it would seem. Last week, I talked to a guy in my church who owns his own networking business. He gave me a set of instructions that I'm gonna try this Friday.
Glad I could help?
~Tobe
I guess?
For what it's worth, though, I tried that method back in the day when I was trying to reclaim my own files on some crappy HP to which we transfered my old HDD from a homemade comp (our first XP machine, that was... seemed so awesome at the time, if not so much now). All it resulted in was an extra username on the login-screen - nothing as far as circumventing locked content. Shame, that.
OOOOOOHHHH, I forgot people actually BOUGHT XP Home. No I don't know a way to do it on home, you need to be able to access security and sharing functions. I don't think the stripped down XP does that.
Cy, if you found a way can you please post it or PM it to me. I've run into this before and probably will again. Be much appreciated if you let me know. :3
~Tobe
Glad I could help?
Sorry about that. I'd asked the questions before you posted, and your idea on logging in as owner matches this one fairly closely:
1.Log in as Owner/Administrator
2.From the menu bar above your Explorer window, select Tools.
3.From there, select Folder Options.
4. Select View.
5. go all the way down to the bottom and UNcheck "use simple file sharing."
6. go to the desired volume's Properties.
7. go to the Security tab.
8. add the Administrator account from the current machine.
9. allow Full Control and hit OK. According to my friend at church, this forces every setting on the hard drive to change so that the owner of the machine being used becomes the Owner account for the hard drive as well.
IF THIS DOES NOT WORK, CONTINUE TO 10
10. from properties, go to Advanced.
11. go to Owner, then to Administrator
12. check Replace owner on subcheck object. ("subcheck" may be a mondegreen, my handwriting failed me there)
Yup thats what I meant, but with actual instructions!
I remember now, you have to get rid of that stupid, "simple file sharing" first.
Gracis
~Tobe
OK. problem arose when we tried that. "Use Simple File Sharing" did NOT show up at all in the checklist. Any ideas?
The "Use Simple Filesharing" option is only in XP Pro. If you're using Home, then that's why it's not there.
So what do I do if I'm using home?
I'm... not sure. 
Did you already try that idea of creating an "Owner" login using the same password as the old system had? Otherwise, I don't know, beyond finding an XP Pro system to connect the drive to.
There is a tool around called TweakNT, that can kinda sorta convert XP Home into XP Pro. Everything changes to say XP Pro, and certain Pro features are unlocked (such as domain networking), but others (like full Remote Desktop) aren't. And I don't remember if Pro's advanced filesharing is one of the unlocked features or not.
And there's the whole thing about TweakNT's legality being debatable, but it's just making registry changes that someone could do on their own in theory, if they knew what they were doing. It's not actually pirating anything.
So yeah, I can set up a Virtual PC to test it and see if it unlocks the advanced filesharing or not. But there's no guarantee that it'll work for you, and that it won't screw up your system, and so on.
EDIT: Wait a sec, there's also this:
www.wikihow.com/Disable-S...me-Edition
Have you already tried what is suggested there?
