How to Access User Folder on Old Hard Drive Windows 10/11

Well, the problem seems stumped a lot of people to access their user folder as follows:

"My Windows 10 notebook died but fortunately I was able to rescue the hard drive and put it into another PC. Unfortunately, the other PC can't open the C/Users/Joe folder. What do I have to do to open the folder?"

Is this hard to access from an old hard disk? Of course not, in this article, you can get the way to access the user folder on an old hard drive in Windows 10. If this method fails to access selected data due to some unexpected reasons, a data recovery tool can help you solve the problem at the end of the article.

How to Access User Folder on Old Hard Drive

Here is the step-by-step tutorial to take ownership and grant full control to files or folders in Windows 10.

Step 1. Right-click on the targeted file or folder.

Step 2. Select "Properties" from the drop-down menu.

Step 3. On the Property window, click the "Security" tab.

Step 4. Click the "Advanced" button below the table.

Step 5. Choose the "Change" tab next to the Owner.

Step 6. You can see the "Select User or Group" window, click the "Advanced" button.

Step 7. Click "Find Now".

Step 8. Select a user name and click OK.

Step 9. Click OK.

Step 10. Check the box "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects". And then click Apply.

Step 11. Click OK if the Windows Security window pops up.

If you have set the above steps, generally you can access your folder now. But if it shows another warning message like: You don't have the permission to read the X folder. You can continue to grant access to the user folder as follows:

Step 1. Close the setting dialog opened by the above steps.

Step 2. Right-click the folder and select "Properties".

Step 3. Click the "Security" tab.

Step 4. Under the Group and user name table, click the "Edit".

Step 5. Click "Add".

Step 6. Type "Everyone" on the box. And click on Check names and click "OK".

Step 7. Select "Full Control" and click "Apply".

People Also Ask about Accessing User Folder

1. How to Restrict Access to a Folder in Windows 10/11?

Step 1. Right-click the user folder you want to restrict. Choose "Properties" on the drop-down menu.

Step 2. Select the "Security" tab. And you can see the existing user account.

Step 3. Under the "Group or user names", click the "Edit" button.

Step 4. Click Add button under the “Group or user name” table.

Step 5. Enter the object user name in the blank box.

Step 6. Click "Check Names" and click "OK".

Step 7. Go to Group or user names, select the newly added user. Under the permissions for < user name >, check "Deny" next to the Full control.

Step 8. Once a warning message shows up, click the "Yes" button.

Step 9. Click the OK button.

Once it is done, the folder can not be accessed by a specific user. If you test it to open the folder, you will see a warning message like "You don't currently have permission to access this folder." If you try to move on via clicking the "Continue" button, you can see the "You have been denied permission to access this folder."

2. Where is All User Folder in Windows 10/11?

Your user files are stored on the C:/Users. You can click This PC to access your C drive. And choose your username to see folders like Pictures, Desktop, Downloads, Documents, and more.

Bonus Tip: How to Recover Files When User Folder is Fail to Access

If your user folder fails to be access by the above tutorial, the culprits may relate to a virus attack or system crash. Still, don't worry, you can use a data recovery software, EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard, to recover folders from an old hard drive in Windows 11/10/8/7. You can restore and save data to a safe place and read the inaccessible folder.

Data recovery is the salient feature of this software. Speaking of device adaption, it is capable of getting data back on an internal/external hard drive, USB flash drive, memory, SD card, and more.

Download the EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard and apply the steps to recover data from the inaccessible folder.

Step 1. Launch EaseUS Data Recovery Wizard in Windows 11/10/8/7 and choose the place where you lost data. Then, click "Scan".

Step 2. After the scan, use the file format filter on the left or upper right corner to find the files you need. Then, you can click the "Preview" button or double-click a file to preview its content.

Step 3. Click the checkbox next to the file and click "Recover" to get back the lost data to a secure place.

Conclusion

That's the topic this article talks about, we provide the full details to access the user folder from the old hard drive. The steps here seem a little complex but it works. If it fails to access data by some sudden crash, data recovery software can help you. Hope you can get what you want on this page.