Hey guys, totally off topic but I was hoping someone could give me some advice.

I had this MCE machine, with a 300GB HDD. The HDD is loaded with recordings and videos etc, almost 200GB.

Now the MCE machine is no more, but I want to share what was on the 300GB drive over the Windows network. So I installed it into a new PC.

Unfortunately its not a simple matter of going into the share properties and ticking 'I know what I am doing and I want to share', which didn't work. So I disabled simple file sharing, took ownership of the drive and allowed 'Everyone' read access. Unfortunately this didn't work. I can't ghost the drive onto another because 1) I dont have a spare one 2) It would preserve everything so I would have the same problem. I also do not trust Windows enough to copy the files across individually.

I've looked up Microsoft KB articles and perused the web and have attempted most things, but to no avail. Anyone got any ideas?

Thanks, even a bit of info will be greatly appreciated.

EDIT: In my haste I forgot to mention said computer is running windows xp pro.

Just a thought, but when you took ownership of the drive, did you make sure you got everything (including subfolders and their contents)?

Right-click on drive > Sharing & Security > Security tab > Advanced > Owner tab > (select your name, or Administrators group) > tick "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" check box...

So, since you didn't state it explicitly, let me just verify: your problem is that other users on the network cannot access the drive, right?

Here's a question, can they access your computer at all? Can you share out a random folder on your computer and have them access that? Or a printer?

If you used a user name for the computer with the HDD in question that was different from the user name for the computer you have the drive installed in now, try created a new user using the same name as you had before in the old system. If that works as "original owner" you should be able to transfer those file to wherever and remove all permissions/restrictions.

It's worth a shot and you can remove the extra user when you're done.

Sorry mate, was a bit rushed at the time. Yes you're assumption is correct, the users could not access the driver over the network. I did as you suggested in your earlier post, I started from the root folder C and took over ownership and selected the administrators group. There were some other random owners in there and after I removed them, it works fine, so thanks immensely.

Thanks guys. This is a great forum.