My Documents folder empty

I just lost my hard drive on my laptop. I have backed up my laptop regularly using Acronis 8.0. My backups reside on an external hard drive that is attached to another computer on my home network.

I invoked "Explore Image" on my desktop computer to view contents of my backups.
My backup image was connected as drive "K:".
When I scroll my mouse over the folder K:\Documents and Settings\Eljefe a little yellow pop-up window displays saying "Folder is Empty".
When I click on folder C:\Documents and Settings\Eljefe I get the following message:

"K:\Documents and Settings\Eljefe is not accessible.
Access is denied."

ALL of my data is stored under \Documents and Settings\Eljefe

Will I be able to restore my hard drive and data using these backups?

 

I would certainly expect that you can. Exploring an image is one test. You can also use the check archive function.

When the hard drive is replaced, just go ahead and restore the image. I think you will find all the data.

 

I hope you are right. He should definitely check the archive. Hopefully True Image 8 is running the latest build 937.

Reading the posting, and being somewhat concerned, I duplicated his configuration. Using TI9, build 3633 I created an image of PC2 networked to PC1 which is connected to a Maxtor USB drive. The image took about six times longer than usual which I expected but completed sucessfully. Mounting the image on the USB drive from the networked computer PC2 I was able to open the My Documents folder and view the files. This suggests to me that he may have a problem. Granted we are using different versions of the software if that is significant.

Good luck,
Bruce

 

Thanks for the tips.

Image Integrity Check completed successfully.

BTW, I'm using TI 8.0 Build 937.

My new hard drive should arrive tomorrow.
I'll let you know how it turns out.

 

Best of luck here and please let us know how you come out with this.

Bruce

 

Eureka!!

Restore worked fine. Best I can tell, I have all my data!

After restore completed, I created a new full image. I then explored the image and all folders looked normal. Not sure what happened before, but it did not seem to effect restore.

 

We are all very happy that TrueImagel lived up to it's name and fully restored your system.

My guess is that since you are now Exploring on the system that created the image, there are no permission issues that could prevent you from viewing files.

Now, just keep making regular backups so that you can recover from any future problems and keep sharing your experiences (good or bad) with all of us here.

 

Some additional info...

Prior to invoking the RESTORE, I EXPLORED the image from my laptop. I got the same messages I saw in my original post. Crossing my fingers and toes, I invoked the RESTORE process. As indicated, RESTORE was successfull.

Today I EXPLOREd the new full image from my laptop and desktop. The EXPLORE from my laptop worked correctly. The EXPLORE from the desktop showed the same messages from my original post.

Hence, like jmk, I'm assuming that this is a permission issue.

Thanks again for your insights!

 

Hello everyone,

Thank you for choosing Acronis Disk Backup Software.

I would like to confirm that the issue relates to the permissions. When you create an image on the one computer and then try to explore it on another one (even if you are using a computer with the same user name), you can get "Access Denied" error message because the user profile and permissions are different from those on your original system. Different permissions and profiles might make you unable to view certain files and/or folders. The only workaround is to restore the image archive (at least the necessary partition) and take ownership over the files and/or folders you need in your new profile and permissions.

Please take a look at this FAQ article.

Please find more information on how to use Acronis True Image in the respective User's Guide.

Thank you.
--
Tatyana Tsyngaeva

 

I currently am having the same problem that Eljefe had in his original post. I received the same error message, and was horrified when I received it, as I tried many times to open it without success. I have just a single hd with an external hd for saved images only. After I made this full backup, I reformatted my C: drive and reinstalled XP. Before I did this, True Image verified the image and said it was successful. That is why I went ahead and reformatted, thinking everything was ok. My whole life is in the My Documents folder. I guess I can try and restore like Eljefe did and keep my fingers crossed. I will be utterly devastated if 4 years of hard work and memories are gone for good.

 

This is crazy...there has to be a work around.

I do not want to restore the contents of my old computer folders to my new computer, rather I want to access them like a virtual drive and selectively move the files I need.

I followed the instructions here https://www.wilderssecurity.com/showthread.php?t=147539&highlight=empty folder to take ownership of the folder, but when I get to:

4. In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group. If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.

I get an dialog box saying "You only have permission to view the current owner on XXXXX XXXXXX" and then there are no names in the list, just the current owner of the item listed(Administrators);,but no additional names to assign or change to.

Anyone have any other ideas?

Aaron

 

OK - I got around it...but it only works if you have access to the original data.

I simply moved all of the folders and files out of the My Documents folder and into a temporary folder on my old computer.

I then created an image that can be accessed on my new machine.

If anyone knows of a way around the permissions without access to the original data, please post here.

Aaron

 

Bad news - while I can see the contents of my folders now, I still cannot open or copy/move them as "the volume is locked" and/or "write protected".

Any ideas?

I am trying to avoid restoring the entire image.

 

Removing "read-only" from the folder allowed me to copy them to my new computer.

I am going to start my own forum.