Backing up a HDD

[whattaguy]

So...I'm trying to troubleshoot my friend's laptop since it won't boot up. Turns out that the lsass.exe and winlogon.exe files are corrupted or missing. One of my IT friends says that the hard drive is really messed up, and that I need to just back up the hard drive and re-install windows.

So...I removed the hard drive and used an external enclosure to back up the files from another computer. The only problem is that the "My Computer" file is password protected, so there's no way for me to back up the files. Is there anyway around this without going into Windows?

Thanks.

 

[RebateMonger]

Try this:

Microsoft: How to take ownership of a file or folder in XP

At the same time, you may also have to give appropriate Security Permissions to an account on the "new" PC. "Modify" will work fine. Apply this to the "My Documents" folder and to all subfolders below it. There's a checkbox to do so.

 

[whattaguy]

Thanks! I'll try that when I get home.