HELP! Harddrive Swap - Cannot Access Folders

[bigjames]

Hey all, I am hoping someone can help me. My parents were running two PCs side by side, both Windows XP Home. One of the PCs died (mouse no longer works, suspect MB problem) so they have opted to merge all files from the broken PC to the working PC.

The working PC only has a 20GB HD and was tight on space, so my thought was to pull the HD from the broken PC and stick it in the working PC (as drive E:) and then copy the files I wanted over to the C: drive. I installed the drive and everything booted as expected. Windows found the new drive and called it E: and I navigated to it. Everything looked like it was going to work...until I tried to access the "Documents and Settings" folder on the old user profile on the E: drive.

Access denied. I checked properties and unchecked "READ ONLY" and it let me open the folder. I thought I was in the clear, but it will not let me open the "My Documents" on E: that contains all the docs and pics I wanted to pull from this drive.

Any help? How can I access it? Do I need to put the drive back in the old PC and find another way to pull the data? Or can I somehow overrule the restrictions? I am an Admin on the PC that contains the drive.

Thanks!

James

[ɹəuəllıʍ ʇɐb]

Welcome to the Windows Forum.

See if this article will help you to get ownership of the files and folders on the transferred HD: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

P.S. please do not publish your email address in this forum; we do not want any bots scanning forum posts here.

[Rickp400]

was their a passward on the other computer

that is no longer working

on the dead computer you have

was it the original computer or the OS is added or upgraded

if the OS is added may want to reinstall the windows

on that computer using that old HDD and do a repiar

i dont know if you can do a repiar with windows of the same OS

if the computer is origingally installed by the manufacture

if there is a password on it and you do a repair

i had this happen when i had my computer password protected

and i did the repair and i could not have access the document

it was denied

you might want to find the computer has the very same model and spec

of the dead one

==================

what is your computer doing that is not working if you dont mind

telling us and what is your model that might help