Disabling "making a folder private"

General Forums Off-topic Chat
#1

My friend had a bunch of stuff in his login folder in the documents and settings folder. He had set it to “make this folder private” which made it so only when he was logged in could that folder be accessed (this is an NTFS partition thingy). He had to reinstall windows when he’s motherboard crashed, which deleted all the actual user accounts, but didn’t delete the user folders. Now my friend needs to get into the folder, but he can’t because the protection prevents it. Windows doesn’t think that his old account is there anymore, so there’s no way to log in as him. Is there any way to disable the private function so we can access it?

Pooba

#2

If he logs in as Administrator, shouldn’t he have access to all the disk?

Martin

#3

Boot knoppix, move the data.

#4

not if it is an encrypted folder [an xp pro option, home doesn’t have it]

supposedly, from what I’ve read, if the user is recreated with the same password you can access it. If you forget the password, you are hosed. I haven’t tried this though

#5

“Private” folders aren’t necessarily encrypted, but they kind of get NTFS protection. When you just make your documents private it makes it so when any other user logs in and tries to go into it, it gives an alert message saying “access is denied.” When the user that has those files “private” logs in he can access those files normally.

Pooba

#6

If you know the username of the folder owner, you might be able to access it by making a new user with that name and the same password like someone said. That might not work though because although it is no longer owned by the old admin, the machine might think it is owned by someone with admin status. I don’t know how to make multiple admins.

Also, there is something on unix called the system immutable bit that is set on some unix system files.

Someone who tried to install a copy of Mac OS X over an old one that he’d just deleted instead of formatting the disk, would not allow him to remove it. The only way to change the system immutable bit is to become the root user which is disabled by default. I don’t know if there is such a thing as root in Windows, maybe admin is highest.

Firstly try and change the permissions yourself. I only know the unix way, which is sudo chown in a terminal.

What you could do is get another OS and mount the Windows volume as a second drive and access the files that way. I don’t think that they’ll recognise Windows file security. You can bypass OS X file/folder security that way using OS 9.

Either that or let a 5yr old kid have a go. After all, we’re talking about Windows security - should take about 10 mins ;).

#7

I know I’m repeating myself, but if you are logged in as Administrator (not a Power User account), you’ll have access to all the drive including private folders.

Martin

#8

You definetly won’t. I use this feature on my computer to block my brother from getting into my files (who is also an admin) and everyone on that computer is an admin. The private folder thing even bars administators, but if XP saw the old user as an actual user instead of thinking it wasn’t there another user could remove the private folder setting in a setting in the user settings (setting setting setting :smiley: ). Anybody else have any ideas?

#9

You definetly won’t. I use this feature on my computer to block my brother from getting into my files (who is also an admin) and everyone on that computer is an admin. The private folder thing even bars administators, but if XP saw the old user as an actual user instead of thinking it wasn’t there another user could remove the private folder setting in a setting in the user settings (setting setting setting :smiley: ). Anybody else have any ideas?[/quote]
You missed my point again. I did not say “an” administrator account (what you’re talking about is Power User, not admin). I’m talking about THE Administrator accout, with username Administrator. This is the true admin of an XP machine. If you don’t have an Administrator account, there’s on nonetheless with a default password.

Martin