Backing up friend's HDD

[wicktron]

My friend's laptop died, but she still needs a lot of the data on her drive. I offer to backup the data, however, I can't access some folders because it says "Access is denied." I'm pretty sure it's due to the fact that her computer was password protected. Is there anyway to circumvent this or have her be able to input her password such that we can recover the data on those folders?

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Simplest way is to create a user account on your computer using her user name and password. Log in as her and you should be able to access the files.

 

[Fardringle]

If the files were encrypted, the only way to recover them is to recover your friend's security key and install it on your computer so that you can decrypt the files.

If it is simply a matter of ownership/permissions, you can take control of the files if you are an administrator on your computer. To do this, follow these steps:

Right-click on her drive in My Computer and select Properties.
In the Properties window, click on the Security tab then click the Advanced button.
In the Advanced Security window, click on the Owner tab.
In the list of users below "Change owner to:" click on the user name that you are logged in with on your PC and check the box labeled "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" and then click OK.

This will give you ownership of all non-encrypted files on the drive (you still need her original security key to access any encrypted files) and you should be able to back them up normally.

 

[FlyingPenguin]

Be aware that the procedure Fardingle describes will only work with WinXP Pro. XP Home doesn't give you access to security settings.