I can't get to my Private folders !! PLEASE HELP !!

Here's whats happening


3 days ago I make the "My Documents" folder private.However,due to Windows (XP) problems,I had to reinstall Windows (I think with "New Install"),but kept my old files (no format).Now,I can't get in the My Documents folder (it says "access denied").I have over 15 GB of varius stuff in there,some VERY HARD to find,and I am considering suicide !!!
What should I do ?? I don't want to lose my files !! PLEASE HELP SOMEBODY !!!

when commiting suicide dont use a spoon,
ok ,are the documents the only thing that is not recoverable?did everything ealse u backed up load with out a problem? did you keep same windows or did u upgrade?do u remember a name of a old folder that was in ur old documents? try to do a search for that name on ur find files and folder.i have xp that worked for me with my sons games.

I upgraded my windows xp installation by re-installing windows xp (same cd as before) with an "upgrade" install.

Oh,and yes,everything else works about fine,xcept for some programs that need to be reinstalled (ie PowerDVD)

try to do a search for the folder or a file that was in that folder and see if its still on ur computer somewhere,like i said that worked for me.let me know if not there are other things to look at ...

If I am reading his post right, he made My Documents private. If this is the same My Documents that windows creates then the folder is still there. If you check the properties on this folder does it still show 15GB there? Or is it gone? IF the data is still in the folder then there maybe hope. Don't quite know how you can fix it but I am doing research on it as we speak. Oh yeah, how did you make the folder private? Was it with software or something already built into XP?

It shouldn't matter - if he logs in as the default Administrator account that was created when XP was installed (or reinstalled in this case) - he should have access to everything.

thats what i thought too

It might be the fact that when he set permissions and did the reinstall it was using the security ID from the old account. After reinstall, the Administrator account is going to have a different number. In which case since the two don't match it will deny access. I've never had to try it, but try and access the files in a command prompt. If you can, copy them to a new directory and see if that works.

as a crazy work-around: maybe a system level service can read the folder. try putting the ftp service on the folder and getting your files the heck outt'a dodge.

shouldn't the administrator account read this directory no-matter-what; same id or not?

Try this. Log in as Administrator if you aren't already. Browse to the folder in Windows explorer. Right click and select properties. Click the security tab. Click advanced. Click the Owners tab. Check the box that says Replace owner on subcontainers and objects. Click Administrator. Click Apply or OK and you should be back in business.

BTW -- if that works you can blame chance. I grabbed my Win2K server book and just opened it up in the middle to start looking for a possible answer, and it just happened to flop open to a page and the first thing I saw was "Take Ownership" Here's what it says: "Once you are the owner, you have an inherent right to change permissions. By default, administrators can always take ownership of a file or folder."

I can't find the "security" tab ! Note that I am running XP Pro,not home or win 2000.

Also,I get an access denied error message even when I try to search for something inside that folder.I can see it in the "Documents and Settings" folder and the locked folder says that it's 0 bytes ! I'm going loco !!

What do you see when you click 'properties'? I've got XP Pro and the security tab is right there (third from the left 'archived stuff' is the name of the folder).


If you don't see this, I might think that a virus has corrupted something, or something went wrong during the reinstall (wish I could be more helpful than that).

That gave me an idea.....I'll reinstall and try again...