So, some time last year, my motherboard failed. I upgraded my PC to a new process, motherboard, more/faster memory, etc., and discovered my hard drive wasn’t compatible – I had to use a SATA hard drive with my new system, and my old hard drive was IDE. “No problem”, thought I; “All my critical files are on a networked backup drive anyway. I’ll just get a SATA drive, re-install Windows XP, get an IDE-to-USB converter to access my old drive, and transfer whatever I need that way.”
But now I find that I need to pick up some MP3 files I had somehow magically modified to work with a jukebox player. It’s got a really cruddy, though free, piece of software to convert MP3s to its proprietary format and file directory structure. It’s almost laughable how shoddy it is; it feels like somebody’s amateur attempt at writing a Visual Basic program, complete with the fact that the program icon is the default “white box with blue bar on top” one I associate with test VB programs I wrote from 15+ years ago. It complains about the MP3 tags for about 10 of my files for no obvious reason. I remember going through some pain a year ago to be able to burn a disc for my jukebox with my own playlist, but now that I want to modify it slightly I can’t remember what I had to hack in the problem MP3 tags or filenames.
(Side note: this jukebox is made by the ominously named “Tyrell Corporation”, which immediately made me think of the movie Blade Runner, especially as their corporate motto is Products From The Future.)
So, I tried accessing my old hard drive to find the folder I’d saved the jukebox playlist in. (My MP3 files proper are stored on a network drive, but network drives confuse this cruddy software even when I map a drive letter for them.) I get an “access denied” error because my files had been password protected on my old Windows install.
So… How do I get Windows to ask me for the password? It’s the same password as I use with my current Windows installation, and the same login name too, so I’m a bit stumped.
