Can I remove my hardrive and copy it, then insert the copy into a new
computer and bypass the password protection.

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Clarification of Question by mecpufix-ga on 05 May 2004 07:16 PDT

My hard drive was remove from my PC to gain access to files located on
it. My OS is winXP Pro. By making it a slave on another PC can access
be gained to my data. In my system this HDD is a master and password
protected at the OS not bios.

Thanks

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Clarification of Question by mecpufix-ga on 05 May 2004 07:18 PDT

If folders and files are moved / copied to the other drive would these
be indicated in the Date Accessed paramters of the files/folders

The password protection may be in the BIOS of the computer.  Some
computers have a password that is set at boot up time.  This does not
prevent people from removing the hard drive and putting it in another
computer and reading it there.

If the password protection is due to the OS. (eg Windows NT, 2000, XP,
etc.) Then you could reinstall the operating system (and lose all the
information that is on the hard drive now) or put in a 2nd drive and
install a new operating system on that.  Make your current drive the
slave drive and the new drive the master drive. (on IDE drives, which
is probably what you have, there are little pins to do that; you would
have to read the directions)  Then boot up the installation disk.  You
would install the operating system on the new drive and you should see
all the old drive once you complete the install.

You may need to reinstall all the programs that are on the old drive
because the registry settings won't exist.

Hi,

>Can I remove my hardrive and copy it, then insert the copy into a new
>computer and bypass the password protection.

If you talking about the user log-on password, then yes.


>My hard drive was remove from my PC to gain access to files located on
>it. My OS is winXP Pro. By making it a slave on another PC can access
>be gained to my data. In my system this HDD is a master and password
>protected at the OS not bios.

Same answer as above, yes.


>If folders and files are moved / copied to the other drive would these
>be indicated in the Date Accessed paramters of the files/folders

No, only when they are read and only the file (copy or otherwise) will
be stamped with access time.

Copy,Move does not effects time stamping (non active directory).

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Side note:

To protect your file and identify it with your user account (SID) you
must do properties>Attributes>Advanced>Encrypt Contents to Secure
Data. This will encrypt the data with your user id security (SID). Of
course this can be broken but to easly? You can do this with files and
folders and prevent what you described above.


CIAO

X

One of the ways is copying through DOS or Norton Commander of older
version .They ignore info about access rights