# accessing accounts on old hard drive **URL:** \ **Category:** Factual Questions\ **Created:** [May 30, 2006, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720 "2006-05-30T11:19:48Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 11:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/1 "2006-05-30T11:19:48Z")
My computer died. I bought a new one and had the old hard drive installed in the new computer; so now I have two hard drives. All my old files are on the old hard drive and I can access my accounts and such. Problem is my daughter password protected her account from the old computer and now can’t open her folders from the old hard drive. The folders are there, I’m convinced the information is still there, but we can’t open them, move them, or anything. We are not even asked for a password. Is there anyway we can open her account? It’s not like we need to “override” her password to gain access neccessarily, we would be happy if we just got a window that asked for her password so we could open the account folder. Thanks in advance. ---
**Author:** ![Otanx](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/c5a1d2/32.png) [@Otanx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Otanx)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 11:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/2 "2006-05-30T11:44:06Z")
Going to need some more information. Off the top of my head. What OS was the old computer? What OS is the new computer? What error message do you get when you try to access the folder? If you have XP on both then IIRC (been a long time) you should be able to login as the administrator on the new system, and have access to all files and folders. That is unless she played with the security permissions on her folders, and removed admin. If so there will be some more work to do first. -Otanx ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 11:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/3 "2006-05-30T11:52:56Z")
They are both using XP. I’m not at that computer now, but I think it said something like “folder cannot be opened. access denied” I may be making that up though. Being the non-computer type I am; I would need fairly explicit directions on how to login as an “administrator” and such. ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 11:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/4 "2006-05-30T11:55:11Z")
There’s a MS knowledge base article with instructions to solve this problem if you’re using Windows XP (Home or Pro). [link](http://support.microsoft.com/kb/810881/en-us) ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 12:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/5 "2006-05-30T12:00:51Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > Being the non-computer type I am; I would need fairly explicit directions on how to login as an “administrator” and such. To see if you have an Administrator account set up, follow the instructions here: [link](http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;293834). If you have one, and most people do as you set one up when you install windows XP, just log in under that account. If you don’t have an administrator account, the instructions in that link will also show you how to set one up. ---
**Author:** ![astro](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/9dc877/32.png) [@astro](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/astro)\ **Post date:** [May 30, 2006, 2:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/6 "2006-05-30T14:10:35Z")
If you use a Linux OS CD to boot the main system you can copy and move the data from those XP folders without access restrictions. I’m not a Linux maven so they will have to advise as to the best Linux boot CD to use for this. ---
**Author:** ![Sigene](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/df788c/32.png) [@Sigene](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sigene)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 4:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/7 "2006-06-01T16:01:31Z")
THat didn’t work; We are taking it back to the GEEK Squad at Best Buy tonight, to see if they can help out. I would prefer to do this at home though (cheaper, more convenient, and is an education for the kid). So I would be open for other ideas. I’ve been told that we need a disk with a certain program to open these files…can’t get much more cryptic than that! ---
**Author:** ![Szlater](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/90ced4/32.png) [@Szlater](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Szlater)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 4:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/8 "2006-06-01T16:12:40Z")
> [@Sigene](#): > > THat didn’t work; > > We are taking it back to the GEEK Squad at Best Buy tonight, to see if they can help out. I would prefer to do this at home though (cheaper, more convenient, and is an education for the kid). So I would be open for other ideas. > > I’ve been told that we need a disk with a certain program to open these files…can’t get much more cryptic than that! What didn’t work? ---
**Author:** ![Nanoda](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ce73a5/32.png) [@Nanoda](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Nanoda)\ **Post date:** [June 1, 2006, 4:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/accessing-accounts-on-old-hard-drive/358720/9 "2006-06-01T16:54:28Z")
I’m interested to know too - I almost posted a link to [this thread](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=366798) last week, but **Szlater** and **astro** posted the same advice in this thread already. Using a Linux disk, the only issues are writing the data someplace (you’d have to have either a FAT formatted volume mounted, or have network access to another PC). In the other thread, **CynicalGabe** changed the permissions in Windows and accessed the data ok.