# Copying access denied files in dos



## silverhammermba (Jan 15, 2007)

My Windows XP machine started acting up recently and now windows won't load at all. I have a lot of personal files on my hard drive that I really can't afford losing so I've been using the recovery console to try to copy those files over to my portable hard drive so that I can reformat and reinstall.

When I look at the directories it says that all of my old folders and files have a size of 0 and whenever I try to access any of them it gives me an "access denied" message. Unfortunately the recovery console doesn't have the CACLS command that changes file permissions and it doesn't have the XCOPY command that would allow me to copy everything over.

Does anyone know how I can copy my files over to my removable drive?

Or does anyone know why all of my files are showing up as being 0kb and why Windows will sit at the loading screen and never start?


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## DoubleHelix (Dec 10, 2004)

First question, did you encrypt any of the files?
Second, connect the drive to another computer and copy the files off that way. Then, if you have to, you can change the permissions.

It's also possible that the drive physically failed.


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## JohnWill (Oct 19, 2002)

How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP


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