How to access a hardisk with password?

Hi fellow forumer,

I am looking for help from computer expert here.

I have a laptop where I have setup an account (let say i name it 'Arie') so that whenever the laptop is turned on, there user must type in a password to enter.

Recently I have a problem with my laptop which needs me to format my C drive of the hardisk. Therefore I take out the hardisk from the laptop and plug into 2.5" external hardisk casing (IDE) so that the hardisk can act as an external hardisk ( I would like to backup all the data inside before format the C of the hardisk).

When I plug the laptop hardisk (which is now an external hardisk) into my other PC, two drive appears: L and M (L is the C drive, M is the D drive).

Luckily I can access all the data from M (which is D). I can also go into the L (which is C) drive. But unluckily I can't access the Desktop of the laptop hardisk (which is located at L:/Documents and Settings/Arie). I stored lots of data on the Desktop of the hardisk. Unluckily, whenever I go to the folder above, an error window pops up, stating 'access is denied'.

May I know how can access it? How can I disable the password that I set earlier? Or how can I make the popup window ask me to type the password (since I know the pssword) instead of straight away stating 'access is denied'?

What make me confused, when I check the properties of the L:/Documents and Settings/Arie, it states '0 bytes'. Thats wrong because it should be more than 15GB.

Hope to hear from anyone expert here.

Many thanks in advance...

Arie

 

I think you will need an encrypting software for doing this.

 

Frankly, I don't have a clue but you might try this anyhow: set-up an account on the other PC that you're using, with the same user name and password as the original folders on your "external" harddisk and try accessing it when logged on to this account.

It's a small chance that it will work, but there is a chance...

 

One suggestion is to forget about doing this through Windows. Boot your machine from a Linux Live CD-ROM instead (such as Knoppix, STD, or any one of hundreds others). That will give you access to NTFS files without having to enter a Windows password. Just attach two external hard drives, one is the original you want to copy from, the other a fresh drive to copy to, then just copy and paste between the two.

There are other ways to do this using Unix commands like DD or ddrescue. Let us know what you decide to do. Thanks!

 

Thanks for your suggestion. Thats what my friends suggest too. I am still looking for friends that have a pc with linux

For the second option with Unix commands, can you elaborate about that? Just use the pc with windows?

Cheers.

 

You don't need to wait until you find a friend's PC that has Linux. You can download .iso files and burn your own CD-ROM for the Linux distribution of your choice. Then change the BIOS on your box to boot from CD first, then insert the CD and reboot. Everything runs from RAM and nothing is written to or saved on the PC, this is called a Linux Live CD. I think it started out like a demo for company products, but it has grown into an inexpensive method to replace your existing computer operating system with Linux.

The commands DD and ddrescue should be part of the install with Linux. If for some reason it is not included, then after you boot with the Live CD point your web browser to hxxp://www.gnu.org/software/ddrescue/ddrescue.html

I recommend distrowatch.com as good starting point to pick the .iso files you want to download so you can burn your own Live CD. Good luck.

 

Thanks mate. You are really helpful.

 

Hi There

Yes as mentioned use a Live Linux CD such as Ubuntu or change the permissions on the Arie folder to everyone full control or take ownership of the folder on the new PC.

Regards