Need Help Accessing Protected User Folder and a few other problems!!

[yhelothar]

My Windows XP Professional was acting up lately. First, the IE windows keep crashing randomly, so did my trillian, next I couldn't install any games with .cab in it, it would just say the archive is corrupt, happened to morrowind and generals, and they work on other comps, then windows keeps using PIO mode for my DVD rom.. so I was angry and decided to just reinstall... I removed the password on my user account so I can access it when I reinstall Windows.

OK now I'm done reinstalling, well first of all, I still can't install the games with .cab, next, I CAN'T ACCESS MY DAMN FOLDER!! I have like 5GB of important stuff in there! It says Access is Denied... What could I do to get in there? Why wasn't' the protection removed when i removed the password?

 

[skyking]

Did you use encryption on your files?

 

[yhelothar]

nope...

 

[yhelothar]

plz help!!!

 

[LittleAl]

Did you run antivirus software on the computer? Viruses can do weird things in an OS.

One way to try to access the data is by logging into the built in administrator account. Do this by hitting CTRL+ALT+DEL twice at the Welcome screen. This will bring up the Win2000 style logon screen. Type in administrator and the password (if any). Make sure all users are logged off or this will not work.

If you can access the data, at this point it would be a good idea to back it up, either to another hard drive, CD-R, tape, etc.

BTW - when you reinstalled the OS did you do a clean install or did you install over the existing installation? Installing over the existing installation may not repair probelms. It can also introduce new ones, like what you are experiencing.

 

[bozo1]

You need to grant yourself rights to those folders.

 

[yhelothar]

i did an install over the existing one.. doesn't that delete the old one and clean installs a new one? well i told it to delete the old windows folder instead of just installing on another folder....

Yes I did do a full scan with norton antivirus 2003 and it was updated before i scanned.

and yes i tried to access it in the administrator account, doesn't work...

 

[yhelothar]

Yes I found out how..

in order to give myself the rights, i needed the damn security tab... which it isn't even turned on by default.. It has to be turned on by going to folder options, then going to the view tab, and uncheck the "Use simple folder sharing(recommended)" tab. Then the security tab shows up. Then all I had to do is change ownership to my account, and check the contain subfolders box...