accessing a password protected external hard disk drive

Lozling

Solid State Member
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I had a compaq laptop, and the motherboard died, so i whipped out the HDD and put it in some casing. However, the OS has various log in names and passwords, which i wasnt able to remove as the motherboard died too quickly, and now i cant access all my documents. My new laptop although lovely wont let me boot from a USB device in the bios, and the hard drive pins arent the right shape/size to fit my new hard drives dock. Im not really too computer literate but with a few instruction i should manage it :) the external HDD has XP Home installed and the new laptop's hard drive has XP Pro. Any help would be much appreciated, thanks :)
 
There is not much you can do. You may have to re-install XP which would leave your files in tact.
 
David Lindon said:
There is not much you can do. You may have to re-install XP which would leave your files in tact.

Couldn't he try a Windows Recovery, isntead of a re-install
:confused:

Its worth a shot atleast
 
Nah, sounds like a good idea if it would work but I doubt it - you'll probably just have to reinstall Windows.

Word of advice though; do not rely on Windows to keep your passwords, always remember every single one of them. It is much better. If you get too forgetful of your passwords and Windows does something wrong then you're screwed.
 
GAH! For one Im a girl :( , for another i know every single password for every single password protected thing I have. Reinstalling windows will do nothing. The windows on my new laptop works perfectly well, as did the OS on the now external hard disk drive, but nothing will allow me to boot from the external drive. The reason the old HDD is still password protected is that the old laptop's motherboard crashed and burned before i had time to take off passwords or do anything. If i could boot from the external HDD as the primary HDD i could put in my passwords (which i remember, thank you), then get into to settings and take off all the passwords and my ultimate aim would be to take off important and sentimental documents, reformat it and use it as a USB mass storage device for MP3s or whatever. I suppose basically my only option is to try and hack my own hard disk drive to get through the password problem (because i cant enter a password on startup on that hard disk drive, it just tells me access to my documents is denied)
i clearly didnt make a huge amount of sense in my first post, blame it on the fact that im a girl with no computer knowledge. I cant even reinstall windows on the external as i'd need to boot from it. Oh well. I can keep hoping i suppose :(

Thanks for your help so far. I think it might be a reformat and lose all documents job at this rate :( Unless i can find someone whose BIOS allows them to boot primarily from a USB device. Mine wont, even though it can boot from the floppy disk drive, when it doesnt even have a floppy disk drive. Typical.

Loz
 
Can'y you take in to a computer store and get them to boot from it and remove passwords etc or take it round a friends house.
 
So far Ive found nobody with the capabilities. The computer shop in my town is useless, they like to send everything away and charge you insane amounts of money for doing nothing at all. Will keep trying though, apparently you need a fairly recent motherboard to boot from an external hdd, and my friends all have fairly old motherboards. Thanks for your help.
 
Lozling said:
GAH! For one Im a girl :( , for another i know every single password for every single password protected thing I have. Reinstalling windows will do nothing. The windows on my new laptop works perfectly well, as did the OS on the now external hard disk drive, but nothing will allow me to boot from the external drive. The reason the old HDD is still password protected is that the old laptop's motherboard crashed and burned before i had time to take off passwords or do anything. If i could boot from the external HDD as the primary HDD i could put in my passwords (which i remember, thank you), then get into to settings and take off all the passwords and my ultimate aim would be to take off important and sentimental documents, reformat it and use it as a USB mass storage device for MP3s or whatever. I suppose basically my only option is to try and hack my own hard disk drive to get through the password problem (because i cant enter a password on startup on that hard disk drive, it just tells me access to my documents is denied)
i clearly didnt make a huge amount of sense in my first post, blame it on the fact that im a girl with no computer knowledge. I cant even reinstall windows on the external as i'd need to boot from it. Oh well. I can keep hoping i suppose :(

Thanks for your help so far. I think it might be a reformat and lose all documents job at this rate :( Unless i can find someone whose BIOS allows them to boot primarily from a USB device. Mine wont, even though it can boot from the floppy disk drive, when it doesnt even have a floppy disk drive. Typical.

Loz

First I apologise for thinking you were a man. Secondly, you can't boot from an External Drive as far as I know on any computer. And if loosing your data is a problem then what I would recommend is to find a Computer shop where they will be able to take your Hard Drive out of your Laptop and take that Data out - putting it on a CD for you to use later (If you're not too sure about them then tell them exactly what you want done and if they look confused for a couple of seconds don't do it!). Don't get them to reinstall windows because they'll make you pay too much! I would! Then all you need to do is install Windows.

If you're basically ok with loosing your data or can't find a competent computer shop then just reinstall windows; but when it comes up on the screen and if it has the choice to just remaster the current Windows then that would keep all of your information safe. You wuld only have to reinstall the games.

Couple of choices, hope they're helpful.
 
I dont need windows on the hard drive at all. I want to use it as a blank store, in the end. The data isnt important but its sentimental stuff, piccies of me and my boyfriend, friends, and big files like movies and lots of MP3s. Im not sure they'd get them on CDs, dvds maybe, but in my sh*tty little town it'd cost too much. I basically need to do it myself or just reformat the drive and lose three years of, hmm, a record of my life i guess. Ah well. Thanks for all you help anyway
 
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