recovering data off hard drive

[goingmad]

Please help!!!! My computer died so I went out and bought a new one, I have put my old hard drive in an external case but cant seem to access any of my files that were on the hard drive. The folders are shown but are either empty or just contain the old program files etc, nothing from my documents or the desktop. Please help...........thank you

 

[The_Other_One]

With XP, your "My Documents" folder should be X:\Documents and Settings\*user*\My Documents. i assume that's where most things would be saved by default. If you are sure you're checking in the correct locations and still can't find anything, your hard drive could be failing. You could run something like CHKDSK (Start > Run > CMD > CHKDSK x:, x being your old drive) and see if any errors are detected.

Also, if you know what you're looking for, you could try searching your computer for them. I find the search methods of Windows to be rather useless, but sometimes they can be effective. Be sure you're searching for hidden files and folders, and then type in the extension. Say you're looking for JPG images, search for *.jpg. Word documents. search for *.doc.

 

[goingmad]

thanks mate

I dont think there is anything wrong with the hard drive, for some reason it wont allow me to access the files or is hidding them from me, when I click on the "user" folder it just says that it is not accessible, I have tried doing searches for all the files that I am looking for but no success...going crazy, wish I knew more about this shit. Thanks for the help anyway

 

[The_Other_One]

I assume when you say "not accessible" you're getting the access denied stuff?

Maybe this will help...? http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

 

[goingmad]

That did it

Thanks mate, that did the trick, managed to get all the files I needed off the hard drive. You are a life saver....Thanks again mate