[whcummins]

I had a WinXP PC die on me, so I rebuilt a new one with a new hard drive with a clean WinXP install. Then, I took my hard drive from my broken PC and installed it in my new system (as drive F). The disk is intact. I'm able to recover most everything I care about. However...

I have about one month of unbacked-up email on drive F only. No DVD copy.. I want to recover these email msgs from the original store folder, but WinXP won't let me access the top-level folders.

The problem is that the old Outlook Express (OE) store folder is in a drive F subfolder:

F:\Documents and Settings\Bill\Local Settings\...\Identities\...\*.*

WinXP wouldn't let me access the subfolder "Bill" or anything beneath it, so I changed Bill's file attributes such that it's no longer read-only and it thereafter let me see into the Bill subfolder. However, WinXP won't let me do the same for the Local Settings folder, so I'm currently stuck. The files are down there somewhere, I just can't access them. ["Access is denied." error]

Any ideas on how I can get to these Outlook Express (OE) files? I believe what happened is that I had some files opened in these subfolders (i.e. active OE copy reading email) when the PC's power supply and motherboard died. Had to shut off power via the power button without shutdown.

Found the following post on Microsoft Tech Forum, but I have WinXP Home and it seems like the described work-around is for WinXP Pro or WinNT (not sure which).

http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;810881


[OE version 6 and WinXP Home with all updates].

Thanks,
Bill

[Kitch]

See this page on taking ownership of files & folders.........http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;308421

See the note near the beginning regarding booting into safe mode if you're using XP Home.

[whcummins]

Kitch,

You da man!!!!!
Worked like a charm.
Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Bill

[Kitch]

Glad it helped.......