Retrieving files from a passworded My Documents folder

[Phayzon]

I have a drive from my dad's laptop (which is now dead and gone), and I need to recover files from it. Its hooked up via USB right now, but I cant get to much of the files due to Access Denied errors, this is because he had a password on his user account. How can I get permissions/'ownership' of the entire drive so I can easily recover files?

EDIT: Nevermind, plugged the drive into my Vista system instead of his XP laptop. Vista is much more helpful with changing folder permissions in the Security tab :)

[Scotty]

Did the XP laptop have XP Home? That would be the reason. XP Home has to be booted in Safe Mode for the "Security" tab to show up.

[Mr.Fibbles]

I imagine that a boot off a live CD would have done the same thing also.

That is the best way to get around file protection, don't boot into the OS that has the permissions set.

[Phayzon]

Did the XP laptop have XP Home? That would be the reason. XP Home has to be booted in Safe Mode for the "Security" tab to show up.

Almost certain it is, yes.

I imagine that a boot off a live CD would have done the same thing also.

That is the best way to get around file protection, don't boot into the OS that has the permissions set.

I learned this by accident in school one day, didnt even think to use it here :doh:

[aces-high]

I usually fix this problem in the security tabs and changing the owner to everyone and giving everyone all access. or something. I just play around the permission settings until it works, it is certainly possible

[Steve]

I imagine that a boot off a live CD would have done the same thing also.

That is the best way to get around file protection, don't boot into the OS that has the permissions set.

I was about to suggest that :)

[Mr.Fibbles]

I learned this by accident in school one day, didnt even think to use it here :doh:

I demonstrated a proof of concept to my boss at school with this. . .we use DeepFreeze to prevent changes to the system: A Live CD doesn't care about that and makes changes because DeepFreeze runs from Windows.
Of course, you need a distro that has NTFS-3G on the Live disk by default (the Live DVDs will have it but not all the Live CDs do) and I know there are ways to edit Windows Registry keys from Linux but it is a great pain or you have to search for the right software.
Still, the best solution is the Live DVD when it comes to infiltration of security in Windows.:D

[Nessus]

I always pull out the drive and put it in an XP pro system as a secondary drive and then take ownership of the folder in the security tab.