The System Volume Information Folders contain your System Restore points. You can delete all or just the oldest ones manually if you like (but they must be sequential). These folders are hidden system folders on each drive. In order to gain access, follow the directions below depending on your version of XP and File System:
Windows XP Professional or Windows XP Home Edition Using the FAT32 File System
Click Start , and then click My Computer
On the Tools menu, click Folder Options
On the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders
Clear the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check box
Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the change
Click OK
Double-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder to open it
Windows XP Professional Using the NTFS File System on a Domain
Click Start , and then click My Computer
On the Tools menu, click Folder Options
On the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders
Clear the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check box
Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the change
Click OK
Right-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder, and then click Sharing and Security
Click the Security tab
Click Add , and then type the name of the user to whom you want to give access to the folder. Choose the account location if appropriate (either local or from the domain). Typically, this is the account with which you are logged on. Click OK , and then click OK
Double-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder to open it
Windows XP Professional using the NTFS File System on a Workgroup
Click Start , and then click My Computer
On the Tools menu, click Folder Options
On the View tab, click Show hidden files and folders
Clear the Hide protected operating system files (Recommended) check box. Click Yes when you are prompted to confirm the change
Clear the Use simple file sharing (Recommended) check box
Click OK
Right-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder, and then click Sharing and Security
Click the Security tab
Click Add , and then type the name of the user to whom you want to give access to the folder. Typically, this is the account with which you are logged on. Click OK , and then click OK
Double-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder to open it
Windows XP Home Edition Using the NTFS File System
In Windows XP Home Edition with the NTFS file system, you must use the Cacls tool, which is a command-line tool to display or modify file or folder access control lists (ACLs)
Click Start , click Run , type cmd , and then click OK
Make sure that you are in the root folder of the partition for which you want to gain access to the System Volume Information folder. For example, to gain access the the C:\System Volume Information folder, make sure that you are in the root folder of drive C (at a "C:\" prompt). To get to the root of any partition, make sure you are in that partition and then type "cd\" (without the quotation marks).
Type the following line, and then press ENTER:
cacls " driveletter :\System Volume Information" /E /G username :F
Make sure to type the quotation marks as indicated. Also, if your user name contains a space you'll need to put your username in quotes. This command adds the specified user to the folder with Full Control permissions
Double-click the System Volume Information folder in the root folder to open it
If you need to remove the permissions after troubleshooting, type the following line at a command prompt:
cacls " driveletter :\System Volume Information" /E /R username
This command removes all permissions for the specified user.
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I now have access to the "System Volume Information" folder.
Thank you
WINXP Pro NTFS x86 32bit
http://tweaks.com/articles/36959/access-system-volume-in102ormati111n-folders
to be slightly incorrect.
It should be:
cacls " driveletter:\System Volume Information" /E /G username:F
ie with NO SPACES between the driveletter and the following colon, and NO SPACES between the username and the subsequent colon.
Typing:
cacls /?
at the command prompt showed the correct syntax and a list of other commands that could be used.
A further useful action was to right-click and select all the text within that Command Window, then using Ctrl+C, copy all the selected text from the Command Window into a temporary text file. This allowed me to debug the syntax of the command and build the correct command in the txt file [I used notepad]. I then used copy and paste functions (with the mouse pointer at the cmd prompt, Right-click and select Paste) to put the desired command back into the Command Window, and ran the command.
This gave me the access I needed to the System Volume Information folder and also showed other commands that I could try out. Hope that helps others.