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Access denied to my old external hard drive

Tardigrad69 Posted messages 1 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -  
brucine Posted messages 25246 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   -
Hello,

I recovered my old external hard drive where I stored years of photos. It's a SATA / 64MB Cache WD10EZEX. I followed the advice to use an external reader, the Orico Hard Drive Dock model DD18-U3. I can access all the files except the most important one, "Documents and Settings," where access is denied. I watched YouTube videos but I can't change the owner to gain access to the hard drive. I hope you can help me, thanks in advance.

2 answers

  1.
    fabul Posted messages 42264 Registration date   Status Moderator Last intervention   6 091
     

    Hi,

    The old on-disk system wasn’t Windows XP, was it?

    Documents and Settings hasn’t existed since Vista

    It’s only a shortcut, not a real folder, so you actually don’t have a problem.

    Your personal data are actually located in C:\Users\You

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  2. nehasawhney Posted messages 14 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   2
     
    Hello,

    In that case, do not modify the permissions of the “Documents and Settings” folder. If this is indeed that folder, it is probably not a permissions issue: under Windows, “Documents and Settings” is a junction created for compatibility with older Windows versions, and direct access to it is intentionally denied. The data are normally located in the Users folder corresponding to the old profile.

    Since these are important photos stored for several years, ideally make a copy/recovery to another drive, without moving or deleting the files already present on the WD10EZEX. You can try using data recovery software.

    https://forum.lesnumeriques.com/t/meilleur-logiciel-gratuit-de-recuperation-de-donnees/131628

    Good luck

    Neha
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    1. brucine Posted messages 25246 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 183
       

      Hello,

      If XP exists or existed, Documents and Settings is indeed a physical folder corresponding to Users in newer versions and not a junction point.

      Documents and Settings does not exist other than as a junction point in newer versions, so it is not a folder and there is no question of accessing it or modifying its permissions

      In essence, we do not know which YouTube tutorial this is, and as usual it only concerns the person who created it and may have been done incorrectly or not sufficiently precise.

      The situation would then correspond to, and whatever anyone says, the absence of NTFS permissions on this folder and thus it is appropriate to start over to correctly assign those of an administrator of the PC "recovery".

      This is a fairly recurring question; the procedure has been recalled, for example here.

      https://forums.commentcamarche.net/forum/affich-38301758-disque-dur-externe-acces-refuse

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      1. brucine Posted messages 25246 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 183 > brucine Posted messages 25246 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        That said, Fabul is right in that in most situations other users do not contain recoverable data but only program data common to all users, their templates... and that the user’s folder is located under XP at:

        C:\Documents and Settings\MyName

        but this changes nothing to the problem, access will be denied in the same way unless rights NTFS are appropriated.

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      2. brucine Posted messages 25246 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention   4 183 > brucine Posted messages 25246 Registration date   Status Member Last intervention  
         

        If we're not able to do it, plan B is to start with anything as long as it's not Windows, for example a Linux Live USB: no more Windows, no more NTFS Windows rights, and we should then be able to access the data in question without any problems to copy it.

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