Hard Drive Problems

Define locked.

Is it on a NTFS partition or something?

Well, I can browse all directories in the drive fine, except for Documents And Settings/Owner. The owner folder says "Access Denied" and there is nothing I can do to open it.

You will probably have to boot from the drive with the folder using the windows install found on the drive.

Your drive is formatted as NTFS. There are two possibilities:

1. The directory has security permissions set to allow access only to specific users.
2. Your files are encrypted.

Most likely, it's the first. You'll get the same problem if you try and open folders such as the hidden "System Volume Information" in the root of your drives. To fix it, do the following:

1. Open an explorer window
2. Select "Tools->Folder Options" from the menu
3. Click the "View" tab
4. Scroll down to the bottom of the list, and uncheck "Use Simple File Sharing"
5. Navigate to the folder you want to open, and bring up the folder properties
6. Click the "Security" tab
7. The "Administrators" group is probably not in the list. Click Add.
8. Type "Administrators" into the window that opens, and press enter.
9. Press OK. You should now have access to the folder


If that doesn't work, or the Administrators group is already in the list, the files might be encrytped. To get access to them in this case, you'll have to ensure you have access as covered above, then you'll have to set your account password to the same as it was on the machine you're trying to salvage your files from.

All working now! Thanks for the help guys, and especially Nemesis2k2!