I have kind of a big issue. I recently purchased and installed a Seagate Barracude 400GB PATA HDD and put my old 80GB WD Caviar into an external enclosure. I can access ALL of the files on the 80GB WD Caviar EXCEPT the ones under my user account "Nihilive". It says, "Access is denied" and the folder shows as 0 bytes. Now, I am pretty certain the information is there, but that account DID have a password on it. So what I tried to do is boot up the 80GB WD Caviar by itself to get back into Windows and lo-and behold... It won't boot to Windows anymore for me to get in and disable the administrator password. I KNOW the information is there, but I need it copied to my new hard drive as they are very important files. I was wondering if there is some way for me to access that drive via my enclosure and put that password in, or possible crack that drive to let me see that information. If not, how else can I get it copied over? I am in dire need of help! Thanks in advance.

If you are familiar with any linux distro boot up a live CD or install linux to a new partition and then mount your 80gig drive to view/copy your wanted files to a seperate disk.

Linux will allow me to view those administrator password protected files? Also, I am new to linux so what distro/literature would you suggest reading to help?

I believe the issue is because the drive is now a "removeable" external drive. Have you tried to give yourself full control permissions for the folders in question?? Have you tried mapping a drive to that folder using the "Nihilive" username and password? If you are currently logged in with an account that has administrator priviledges, you should be able to access the files one way or another. Search Engines Are Your Friends ☺ Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. "The Matrix"

How would I map that drive/folder? It seems that drive mapping is for network devices, and this is removable storage.

OK - say your computer's name is "MyComputer"- and you share the folder, say the share is called "Folder". You can check/change the permissions and access rights to the share. Then when mapping to the share, you just follow the \\server\share format, which would be \\MyComputer\Folder Still, if you are Administrator on the computer, I would think you would be able to gain access to that folder without mapping it. Search Engines Are Your Friends ☺ Morpheus: There is a difference between knowing the path and walking the path. "The Matrix"