Data recovery from a Western Digital

[Gumby]

Ok here's the problem.
The computer is a Sony Vaio tower. Probably 3-4 or so years old. It's a friend's, so I'm not too sure. When turned on, bios posts, then the XP loading screen comes up, the little bar goes, and then it looks like it's going to load, but the screen goes black, then the mouse pops up, everything else is still black, and the mouse moves. Nothing happens after that. Just sits there fat dumb and unhappy.
So I take out the hard drive, it's a western digital, 250 gig, sata, and stick it in my computer. I run a virus scan, and it comes up with one, trojan and a few tracking cookies. Well I try to then just get the information I want off the drive, but since the documents are in a profile with a password, I can't access them, says access denied. Well I right click and try to get the security tab, but can't find anything. So I try to boot in safe mood. I can't, I get hung up on the MUP.SYS file.
Well I then go back and put the hard drive back into the original computer and try to boot in safe mode. Again, hung up on MUP.SYS. I try to boot normally, it goes to the login screen, but I can't move the mouse because I disconnected everything minus keyboard and monitor. I boot again this time with the mouse in, I get the black screen and nothing. So I take the mouse off, boot again, and I get back to the login screen. I try to login with the keyboard. I hit enter, it locks up. I reboot, and I get the black screen even without the mouse. I try a few more times, and still nothing.

I just need the files out of the password protected "My Documents".

Any thoughts?

O and the operating system on the messed up hard drive is XP, probably SP2. On other computer, it's XP SP 2.

Thanks in advance!

 

[Computer Head]

On the working computer with the corrupted hard drive installed, When you right click a folder, do you get the option "Sharing and Security"?

If not, follow these steps:

1.Click Start, and then click My Computer.
2.On the Tools menu, click Folder Options, and then click the View tab.
3.In the Advanced Settings section, clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box
4.Click OK.

Once that is done, right click the folder you want to be accessible, and hit Sharing and Security, then the Security tab. Select your username in the Group or User names list and click "Allow" on Full Control, then OK out of the dialog. It should then be accessible.

 

[cavemangrinder]

Well if you just wanna get the documents transferred from the messed up hard drive into your hard drive, you can download a live linux cd and give that a try. Basically the linux OS will run entirely from a cd so there will be no change to your system, linux bypasses the Windows permissions and stuff like that. Once your in the desktop, you should be able to dig into the messed up drive to retrieve your documents. Have both hard drives installed so you can copy files over. I had to do this once when Windows crapped out on me.