User password protected "my docs" folder

Hello folks,

I have a laptop that died (actually it powers up, but no video) anyway, the user needs his docs off the laptop hard drive really soon. So, I pulled the HD and attached it to my desktop. The hard drive shows up, everything appears to be correct. When I try to access his account folder to get his data, it reads access denied. When I hover my mouse over his folder, it reads "0 files, 0 folders). Is that just a security feature? I HOPE all his data is still in that folder. I sure didn't do anything to it, since I cannot access it.

His account is password protected. I am not presented with any place to enter his pw on my PC.

Anyway, I need to get around this and get his data backed up. I thought I might could access it in safe mode, but it does the same thing.

His laptop - windows xp home, my ws - windows xp pro.

Any suggestions?

A

Have you tried replacing the "owner" of the files?

Windows Explorer, Right click protected folder, sharing and security
Security, Advanced, Owner

Click one of your users, then click "Replace Owner" and then click Apply.

You can also use Knoppix to copy over stuff protected this way.

If they encrypted the folder with their username/password - it is a much more difficult task to get it back. I have seen users do it and not know it. Even among the people who know what they are doing - people backing up certificates and the ciphers are a myth. It makes it very hard to recover anything in this scenario.

http://www.informit.com/articles/art...p?p=19433&rl=1
http://www.compulink.co.uk/~davedorn...xpencrypt1.htm
http://www.tomdownload.com/utilities...a_recovery.htm
http://www.softpedia.com/get/Securit...Recovery.shtml

Follow this: http://support.microsoft.com/default...308421&sd=tech

Basically you need to take ownership of those private/protected folders