Accessing Files From External Hard Drive
May 11, 2005
I bought a DELL labtop Inspiron 5052 over two years ago. It got XP Home version. A couple of weeks ago, a cup of coffee was spilled on my laptop. I took it to a computer shop. They contacted Dell and tried to order the labtop motherboard but to no avail as Dell has discontinued manufacturing this type. The warranty is only 1 year. So I decided to use it for spare parts. What 's an expensive cup of coffee ($3500.00). After removing the hard drive (60Gb) from the labtop, I made it as an external USB type hard drive. It was a perfect solution as at least I can save the data. But the fun was a short one as I now experience something to do with 'file access'. Connecting the external hard drive to my PC, I can see all the files and folders on it. The problem is on my Dell laptop I have 2 users setup under Document and Setting. One of the user logon (userA) enforces password while the the other (userB) enfoces no password for logging on. I can open files from userB with no problem but can not open files or folders from userA. It says "Access denied" or "file inaccessible". Is there a way to overcome this ?
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Jul 20, 2009
I am running windows xp sp2. My primary computer seems to have had a motherboard meltdown. Left on thursday, would not boot on friday. Cannot get to cmos, or anything. I removed the harddrive and put it in another computer to get work files off of the drive and transfer them to server. On boot it says"error loading operting system".I hooked up the hard drive as a slave and used explorer to go through and get the files. I can see the Desktop directory in documents and settings****desktop, but i get an access denied when i try to get to the files on desktop. I have tried using the Dos Command prompt and have the same result. I have booted in safe mode w/ prompt, same results. I have tried making a user profile with same name and passwords, no luck. These are files on the desktop, not shortcuts. Does anyone know how i can copy these files?
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Mar 5, 2008
I am using Windows XP and have two hard drives. Until recently I had Windows installed on one hard drive and all my important files (photos, business files, videos, etc) were also on this drive. My other hard drive was completely empty. Suddenly I started encountering problems with Windows and while I was using Windows it would completely freeze. I would pull the plug on the computer and start it again and then it would be fine - for a few hours - and then it would freeze again. The problem started happening more often and more quickly after rebooting and interestingly I noticed over the course of a few days that the problem seemed to be worse whenever my heater was turned on. I left the heater turned off and didn't encounter a problem again for a couple of days, but then it started happening again and more often even while the heater was turned off. I figured because there seemed to be a correlation with the heater being on and the computer's performance that the fans or the power supply inside the computer were over-clogged with dust. I opened up the computer and thoroughly cleaned out all the dust I was able to and made sure all the fans were dust-free. It didn't help. The computer's condition continued to deteriorate and occasionally when I attempted to re-boot the computer it would completely freeze before getting to the Windows boot screen or it would display the following message.
Windows could not start because of a computer disk hardware configuration problem. Could not read from the selected boot disk. Check boot path and disk hardware. Please check the Windows documentation about hardware disk configuration and your hardware reference manuals for additional information. Over the next couple of days the computer wouldn't get to the Windows loading screen at all and it would only boot to the point of displaying the aforementioned message.I took my computer to my friend's house to see if he could fix it. He said that some of the boot.ini files in my version of Windows were damaged or I had accidentally deleted them somehow. Because I was completely unable to load Windows there was no way to do a System Restore so he came up with an alternative plan. He decided to load a new Windows XP onto my other hard drive and use that drive as my master. He said even though Windows was loaded onto the first drive, I would be able to access the files from it with the new Windows in Windows Explorer. So he did it but then we encountered a new problem. The new Windows works fine but for some reason I am unable to access the files from the other hard drive. I think this is because my original Windows had a password on it. When I used to load Windows you had to type a password to login as me and access my files. Otherwise you could only be a guest. But now when I try to access these files an Error message comes up saying these files cannot be accessed. It doesn't even give me the option to type a password.So basically what I want to know is this: Am I able to recover these files from my original hard drive. I really need them for my business and I have five years of family photos on there that are of high sentimental value to me.
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Jul 16, 2005
I had my hard drive transferred to a new pc. I cannot access the numerous (and important!) files under Documents and Settings/My Username on the new pc. Apparently, Windows has restricted access to those files since it does not recognize me on the new PC. The files all seem to be there (based on the info from the properties of the documents and settings folder), but I cannot see them. Both old and new pc use XP Home.How can I regain access to these files?
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Mar 5, 2010
I have a Dell computer where one of the loading .dll files came up 'missing' one day, so it won't boot. I want to get all the photos and other docs off the hard drive. I had downloaded one version of linux and was able to see the files on the internal hard drive, but was unable to copy them to a memory stick or external hard drive. Now I've downloaded ubuntu and booted off a memory stick... this time, it's telling me that the internal hard drive has all kinds of bad sectors and won't let me access any of the files on there.
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Sep 27, 2007
I am really annoyed cause I can't delete most of the files on my external hard drive, nor can I format it. I tried using this program that has always successfully deleted files off of my C and F drives. It seems there is no way to delete these files.
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Aug 25, 2005
I just bought a Hitachi Deskstar 160 gb external hard drive to back up my system hard drive on my pc. I tried using the copy & paste commands from explorer, but the ext hard drive wouldn't allow this. What do I need to do to get this done?
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Dec 4, 2008
I did MS Outlook 2003 full backup to an external hard drive just before my computer died and I want to transfer my e-mail files from the external hard drive to my laptop circa 2006.
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Nov 29, 2009
I completely reinstalled my Win XP OS and i saved my "necessary" files(music, videos. etc...) to an external hard drive but i accidentally encrypted them and now i have to figure out how to decrypt them so i can copy them to my new OS.
When i try to just uncheck the "Encrypt contents to secure data" box i get the error
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Jan 29, 2007
I was cleaning out my external hard drive and erased the wrong files, It was to big for the recycle bin.is there anyway I can get those files back?
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Mar 11, 2006
I want to back up my files to an external hard drive using Windows Backup, but it is not shown as an option. The only options shown are the floppy and f: drives. Can you use this program to back up to an external drive? If so, how do you tell it where to send the data?
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Jan 7, 2007
quality of AcomData External HD? Also, is this a well established company? Any info as to how this brand compares to a Seagate External HD?
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May 6, 2008
I had a hard drive fail (can't boot up on it) so I installed windows on a second hard drive. I still want to be able to recover the files on the first drive, so is there a way I can just access the drive with both HDs attached to the computer?
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Jun 14, 2009
My motherboard died and I had my files password protected in Windows XP Media Edition, can I connect the SATA hard drive to another PC via USB and unlock the protected files, or does it have to run as the main drive to allow access and entry of password and then making all files public?
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May 25, 2010
I recently bought Fantom Drives 1Tb external hard drive, Model # GF 1000EU. After about a year all computers would stop recognizing the external hard drive. My computers would know it was connected but I would not see it under "My computer." I read through hundreds of forums trying to fix the problem. When nothing worked I decided to take apart the enclosure and remove the hard drive so I could connect it to my desktop pc using a SATA cable. Essentially, I have two hard drives connected to my computer and I want to use one as an external hard drive so I am able to access data from it while still running my computer off of it's original hard drive. Is this possible?
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Jul 4, 2005
does not have problem when connected via legacy controller, problem only when using USB 2.0 card in PCI slot of XP SP2 machine. No blue screen just reset. Something seems to be clobbering memory. Have tried loading new driver, uninstalling and reinstalling driver. Tried multiple USB 2.0 cards as well. Windows/XP Home updates are automatic, therefore very current. Drive is Maxtor external USB.
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Jul 7, 2005
My computer has been sporadically crashing to blue screens due to an incompatible driver or drivers, so I tried removing two questionable drivers from the driver folder. It is clearly because I removed these drivers that the computer won't boot. So in order to fix the device driver problem I'll first have to get the operating system running, which means I must put the drivers back in place (I backed them up on the hard drive).So here comes my real question (disregarding compatibility issues which originally led to this boot problem): How can I access those drivers I backed up on the hard drive and put them back in the driver folder without booting up Windows XP? Does a boot disc have the utilities to do this? Is there some way of doing this through the BIOS? Is there an operating system or something that I can run off of a floppy disc or compact disc (which won't require any installation) that I can use to move these files? Maybe at a later date I'll create a thread addressing the driver incompatibility issue that I have, but, for now, I'm only concerned with putting those drivers back in their place so I can get to the next step.
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Oct 30, 2006
My computer came down with a nasty virus that I didn't want to deal with anymore, all the computer would do was constantly reboot, could never get to log-in. So I bought a new HD (which I really wanted anyway ) with intentions of loading new OS on the new drive and using the old drive as a slave, and after copying all the files I needed off the old drive I was going to reformat it for storage. Everything worked out fine except on the old drive I had a separate password protected admin login named Billybob where I kept all my important work files. I also used the sharing and security function to protect Billybob from access from other users. Now I can't access the files myself. I can only access the files that were in the 'Guest' profile that wasn't password protected. When I click on or try to move the files in Billybob I get the 'access denied' message. I used the HD utility program that came with my new HD and it allowed me to actually move the files on to the new HD but the files are still protected when I try to open them. Any help on this would be REALLY appreciated as I have over a years worth of technical work stuff in Billybob that I will never be able to replace.
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Jan 8, 2009
I am cloning my existing hard drive in my laptop (sata) to an external hard drive (pata) in preparation for installing a new larger hard drive (sata)in the laptop. Can I, or how do I transfer the cloned data from the external (pata) to the new internal hard drive (sata)? Thanks in advance and I apoligize if this is a rudimentary question as this is my first time attempting something like this.
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Oct 7, 2010
We have Windows XP Home Edition 80 GBCan we copy entire hard drive to an external hard drive?
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May 17, 2007
I've connected an external USB drive, but when I go to My Computer it shows it as a network drive. In addition, it gives it the same name as the mapped network drive that already exists there. When I change the name of the external drive there, it then changes the name of the mapped network drive, so again they both have the same name, although the drive letters are different. Any ideas how to make the external drive appear where it belongs in My Computer, under Hard Disk drives?
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Feb 23, 2009
I turned the PC off to reboot when I though I was going into safe mode and went into regular mode instead. Now, it thinks one of my external drives is the C drive. On boot, I am getting a message that it cannot recognize find the system 32 windows config file (I'm paraphrasing).
I used the repair utility to get to the C prompt (which is pointed at the external drive) and checked the drive letters. I don't think the PC bios knows the hard drive is there.
I tried going into setup and reverting to factory installed configuration and that didn't change anything. I could not get it to recognize the hard drive.
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Aug 3, 2007
I have a usb external hard drive. Can I install windows os on this drive and use it.I am told that windows must be installed only on main hard drive 9i.e. drive 0).
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Sep 25, 2005
Recently, my motherboard fired, but the Hard drive was uneffected. Since i had a lot of info on the hard drive i tryed to find people who could take the info off the hard drive for me. I then had this great idea of just putting my hard drive into a "Hard Drive Enclosure Kit". Well, i did that and it worked great. But theres one problem, I can't seem to get into the Owner folder of the hard drive, for evey time i do, it brings up.
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May 10, 2007
I just recently purchased a 100 Gb laptop hard drive together with an outer case and a USB cable. I just wanted to upgrade my laptop's hard disk, by first making an image of my current drive into my new one through the outer casing. The thing is when I connect it to my laptop, windows cannot detect it. Whats wrong with it? Is there anything I have to do?
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Oct 18, 2009
I recently helped someone save the documents off of their computer after it crashed (it was missing a Windows file. I tried the repair command and it wouldn't work, so I decided to save the files and reformat the hard drive).I plugged the hard drive into a working computer and pulled all the documents off of it (VERY slowly) onto an external hard drive.
Every once in awhile I wouldn't be able to pull a picture or document off because of a cyclic redundancy check error. I just moved on and saved what I could. I assumed it was because the hard drive was already bad so I just moved what I could.
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May 18, 2010
My problem is that I am trying to use a 60 GB ATA / 133 Maxtor DiamondMax Plus 9 Internal Hard Drive as an External Drive as a Slave and I am having trouble getting my bios to recognize it.The Hard Drive is hooked up in the same way as an Internal SATA DVD burner setup as an External DVD Burner that is running on Windows Office XP 2003 and it works fine. So what suggestion would you give me so that I maybe able to get the bios to recognize this drive?
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Sep 23, 2007
Found some very useful info on here so decided to sign up and post a recent problem i encountered with an external hard drive. the hard drive has a capacity of 80GB and came from another pc. there was a 25/55 partition already on it from the old pc. i tried to delete the partition that was 25gb. now i can't find that 25gb at all. when i plug it in to the usb slot i can only see the 55gb partition it used to appear as 2 hard drives in my computer and nothing else. when i use disc management to format it i only see 55gb.
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Aug 20, 2005
To anyone that might be able to help... I've had this external hard drive for a long time and I haven't been able to access it to store lots of music and videos on. My computer sees that it is there, but like I had said earlier, I can't use it. It won't let me see it unless I go to Device Manager. My computer is getting old on me and it's been places most labtops shouldn't have gone... Once in Purgatory, and now, it's on Hell's surface. I get the safely remove hardware icon down by my clock, but I don't want to remove it, I want to use it. I want it to show up in my drives so I can instantly see how much space I have left and what not... I went through the Troubleshooter, tried every possible way that I can think of, the ways the troubleshooter.
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May 5, 2006
I have a Sony VAIO desktop running Windows XP. I purchased a Comstar 160MB External USB2 Hard-Drive and installed it. Since Windows XP is supposed to have the drivers that are necessary, no driver disk was included, and none was needed.The problem developed when my Windows XP began to give me problems later. I had to re-install Windows XP. I did that, and I downloaded all Windows XP up dates (including Service Pack 2). Now, this Windows installation does not install the external hard-drive. Windows recognizes that there is "a USB2 device," but Windows states that there are no drivers and asks me to furnish them.
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Aug 3, 2005
I'm partitioning an external hard drive that's connected to my Win XP machine. I set an 80GB partition for XP (NTFS). When I tried to allocate the rest of the drive as a FAT32 partition (for my Win98 machines), FAT32 was not an option, until I reduced the partition size to 20 GB. I'm using XP's Disk Management. Is there a maximum limitation of FAT32 partition size?
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