Mounting an image to access files

Hello,
Took a full image backup of my PC before a rebuild. I decided (for various reasons) to re-install a full copy of XP (not from the backup) and then needed to mount the backup image as a virtual drive to access some of my old documents. Everything was accessable except for the drives 'My Documents' directory . I could see all the files and subdirectories under 'My Documents' but not copy them. As it was critical to get to these files, I was left with no choice except the time-consuming option of having to re-install the full image, copy files from My Documents elsewhere and then start all over again with my full xp re-install.

I think XP security was the cause of this problem, but didn't know of any easy way to solve this. BTW the user account and password created on the new install was exactly the same as the backup.

Any comments/suggestions?

 

Hello Simon --

Thank you for taking the time to contact us and for your interest in Acronis
True Image (http://www.acronis.com/products/trueimage/)!

I believe the reason was indeed in Windows XP - the image was obviously ok as you were able to restore from it.

Thank you.

--
Best regards,
Anton Gromov

Acronis, Inc.
395 Oyster Point Blvd. Suite 213
South San Francisco
CA 94080 USA
http://www.acronis.com/

Acronis... Compute with confidence

 

I know I'm late to reply, but, if its helpful to you, then great!

The reason, you couldn't access those files in My Documents, is because whenever a new account is created in Windows XP, the OS generates a unique UID with an equally unique private key for that account. WinXP then uses this private key of the unique ID to set that user's folders to be accessible by that UID ONLY.

This is especially true, if the old account is protected by a password or if access to that account's folders has been restricted to it only.

So, even if you create a new account with the *same* username and password, it'll still be unaccessible unless you backed up your private key and imported it into the new account.

The point that I'm making is, it isn't TI's fault and it also isn't WinXP's fault. WinXP is just working hard at keeping your data secure, thats all.

 

Is there a way to make the image files mounted as a drive but not read only? This way you can just take ownership.

 

Wow, woud I love to hear an answer on how to solve this. I have a machine that blew up, but I have a good backup image I cannot access. :-(