My compaq desktop was recently a victim of a lightning strike. The motherboard got fried but the hard drive was fine. I took the drive out and bought a IDE to USB case and am using my laptop to access it. The computer was set up with three accounts one was password protected. I can see all of the files that were not in a password protected account but I can't see the files that are in the password protected account. Unfortunaly for me they are the files that I really need, e-mails,pics,movies and music. Also the drive was originally an 80gb hd and when I click on propeties it shows the hd having a 67 gb capacity. How do I get to the files under the password protected account? Is this an XP issue or a compaq issue? Any help would be appreciated.

Password protection should not carry over if you are not booting the drive in question although Encryption would.

See if this helps:

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

http://support.microsoft.com/?kbid=308421

would this also cause the computer to not see the true capacity of the drive?

There are many possible issues there. Just using an external USB case might be conflicting with the true readings.

If taking ownership does not work you might try this freeware:

http://www.pcinspector.de/file_recovery/UK/welcome.htm


There are also more powerful programs out there for a price.