Access denied on old Windows Account

ok... I got a new hard drive. Made my old HD a slave to the new HD, installed XP onto the new HD, went to my computer, and copied everything from the old HD I wanted. But there is one folder I need and I can't get - My Documents. Because the old HD had XP and my user account on there, it won't let me take the My Documents folder from that user account (I'm guessing because I'm not accessing it through the OS on THAT HD).. it says Access Denied.

Well I tried booting from the old HD but about 1 second after it goes into the initial XP Loading screen, it cuts to a blue screen saying that there is some problem and that you should check for errors on the disk... Is the OS broken or something?

I used the XP installer to go to the recovery consol on that hard drive... and used the DSKCHK feature and it said it found problems but didn't tell me what they were. I just don't get how the OS got messed up on that old HD...
I NEED that my documents folder.

ok I've been doing some reading.
About how I should take ownership of that folder.
Problem 1: I don't have the security tab
Problem 2: If I go into folder options>view, there IS NO place where I check "enable simple sharing"

I'm going to go into the setup and see if I can run a few commands from the xp recovery console

back in 5 minutes. somebody respond : )

You have to take ownership of the file first. To take ownership of a file, you must be an administrator. Here is the microsoft KB article on how to to it. For XP Pro, you must disable Simple File Sharing. This option is located in an explorer window (such as My Computer). To access it go to Tools->Folder Options... Now click on the View tab. The simple File Sharing option should be towards the bottom. Now, uncheck that and click Ok.

Hope this helps.

I am using XP Home, and I've read that article and it didn't help me because the Simple File Sharing option isn't even in the folder options view tab

Do I have to be in safe mode? How do I even get to safe mode?

also, I just tried going into the recovery console and It says it needs the administrators password... But I don't know what it is! It apparently is not the password as my user account in XP...
so lost..

In XP Home, you have to boot to Safe Mode and logon as Administrator, or use the cacls.exe tool (located in C:\WINDOWS\system32) from an admin account in normal mode, to make changes to NTFS file permissions. To enter Safe Mode, hold down the F8 key just before Windows starts to load (just before your PC finishes POST'ing).

Only Pro allows you to disable the simple file sharing mode and access the security tab in normal mode of operation. Simple file sharing makes your My Documents folder private from everyone, including other Admins, so your files won't be visible to others who logon to the console.

alright I got it... Thanks a bunch
Never done this before. Quite a learning experiance

So one last question: I used to use Outlook Express on the old HD... where does it store all the saved messages and temporary messages? I would like to get those as well.

EDIT- Made my post longer. - the last one was wimpy

OE stores its message folders in .DBX files
To backup up these files:

1) Make sure Outlook Express is NOT running.

2) Locate the dbx files by running a search for *.dbx


3) Backup the directory - or just the .DBX files you want.

Note where you got the files from.

Restoring Outlook Express Folders
Outlook Express seems to keep track of what folders are being used. So you can only restore .DBX file if Outlook already has one of the same name. Unfortunately I don't know where it keeps track of these folders.

Let's say you are moving your Outlook Express installation from one machine to another. You have backup up all your .DBX files as mentioned in the Backup section above, and you have created a new installation of Outlook Express on the new machine.

1) Identify all the .DBX files (folders) that you are going to restore but which do not exist yet on the new machine. This list of files would only include folders that you have created yourself and would not include folders like inbox, outbox, etc.

2) Start Outlook Express and create a new folder for each one you identified in (1).

3) For each new folder you have created you *must* highlight it - select it with your mouse as if you were going to see what is inside it. We know it is empty, but Outlook Express will not create the .dbx file until you do this. [Thanks to Ethan Diamond and "Biggles" seperately for their input]

4) Close Outlook Express. Now you will see that your Outlook Express installation will have a .DBX file for every folder you are about to restore.

5) Now restore the .DBX files.

6) If you restored from CD it may be that the read attribute on the files has been set. In this case you will need to ensure that the read attribute is cleared for each file you restored. [Contributed by Aaron Kuhn]

7) If all is well, when you open Outlook Express now you will get all your restored messages.

disclaimer - I did not write this article someone sent it to me @ work. But it works, I walked a student through it today

umm Well when I did a search for .dbx files.. nothing came up.
Is there another file type that OE might be using?

I do not believe so.

Heres anothe route to find them


Open up OE and go to tools - options - maitaenence tab - and press store folder.

The path should look something like this

C:\Documents and Settings\username\Local Settings\Application Data\Identities\{3E746608-78BC-4FE2-B6CD-0C3F344EA760}\Microsoft\Outlook Express

Highlight the path and copy it and go to start - run and paste there and press okay.

Thats where they would be stored.

You need to have access to identidy you are trying to back up

got 'em. Thanks a bunch

Cool. If you need any other help with OE let me know. It's what I do all day at work anyways.