Need Help w/HDD Setup

[EXCellR8]

So I've been trying to help my sister with her computer but I have a serious problem. I couldn't back up all of her stuff because I don't have a big enough hard disk to fit them all on. (She has too many pictures, music files, movies and docs). I figured it would be easier to just install windows xp on a different disk and then use the original one as the slave device. This setup worked fine but now something is wrong. I can't access the "Owner" folder on the old drive!! It says "Access Is Denied" and reads 0kb for file size!! She's freaking out because she thinks all her files are gone! I don't know what to do. The old disk wasn't even installed when I formatted the new one so I can't see how everything would just get deleted. All the files from the old Windows xp install are still there but I can't get into the owner folder to retrieve her files! Can anyone help me with this?

 

[raybay]

How are the drivers jumpered?
If the old drive is jumpered as slave, and the new one as master you should have no problem.
No way to tell her the files are still there, but It appears your Windows on the old drive didn't like the change...
Hard drives are cheap nowadays... You can buy a 250 to 320 GB hard drive on several online sites for under $78... or an 80 GB for $41. 500 G B is $120 which should be enough even for your sister.

 

[Nodsu]

Just ignore raybay.. The problem is that every Windows install regenerates security identifiers SIDs. All the files on that old drive have permissions that refer to the long gone users of the old Windows install and therefore any users from the new install are not allowed.

Log in as administrator and take ownership of the folders you can't access. After that you can assign permissions any way you like.

 

[EXCellR8]

^I have tried that but I still cannot gain access to the folder with an admin account on the new install. I just tried booting from the old drive, which still has all the os files, and I can't because it says some of the files are missing or corrupt i.e. system32/hal.dll etc... I just figured if I could boot into the old install I would be able to access the files again, but now the old install won't boot.

EDIT: I think I know why the old disk won't boot. I renamed the old win directory "WINDOWS_OLD" so I wouldn't make the mistake of modifying it... guess that kinda backfired...

EDIT2: Alright I got the old drive to boot and it appears that all of her files are fine. The only thing is that now I am back to square one in trying to figure out how I'm gonna back up all her stuff. I guess I'll just tell her to buy a new hard drive that is at least 160GB. I might just buy it for her and then take the old one after but I'll see what she wants to do. Thanks guys!