Hi,
I have an external hard drive that I need to recover nearly 2 gigs of files
stored in the recycler folder. None of them show up when opening the folder,
but I can see the names of the files as I copy the folder to another drive.

My son accidentally deleted the files and as he no longer has the computer
he deleted them on, I can't get into them.

I tried taking ownership of the folder as an administrator and the contents
to no avail. I'm using XP Pro sp3 as was my son's old computer. The drive is
NTFS formatted. Help please!

"JulesH" <JulesH@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message
news:6137B552-5952-47FB-AEF8-F685A03E2A10@microsoft.com...
> Hi,
> I have an external hard drive that I need to recover nearly 2 gigs of
> files
> stored in the recycler folder. None of them show up when opening the
> folder,
> but I can see the names of the files as I copy the folder to another
> drive.
>
> My son accidentally deleted the files and as he no longer has the computer
> he deleted them on, I can't get into them.
>
> I tried taking ownership of the folder as an administrator and the
> contents
> to no avail. I'm using XP Pro sp3 as was my son's old computer. The drive
> is
> NTFS formatted. Help please!

It is a little unclear what you mean with "to no avail" when you attempted
to seize ownership. Was your attempt rejected or was it accepted, without
making the files visible? Did you tick the box "Replace owner on
subcontainers and objects"?

It your attempt appears to have been successful then you may need to make
the files visible. Here is a way of doing quickly:
- Click Start/Run
- Type the three letters cmd
- Click OK
- Type these command
cd /d X:\Recycled{Enter}
(replace X:\Recycled with the correct drive/name of the problem folder)
attrib *.* -h -s -r /s{Enter}
Note that the files will not show their original names. It may take you some
time to work out which file is which.

This would be a good time to review your backup policy. Storing 2 GBytes
worth of important and perhaps irreplaceable files in just one single place
seems to be asking for trouble. Next time you might lose the lot! A 2.5"
disk in an external USB case is a low cost but highly effective backup
medium.