[Psychonaut]

Long story short, XP crapped out on me (not surprising) and now I'm trying to back up what I can using another harddrive as a master boot. Thing is, my user's "Documents and Settings" folder is protected (naturally, since the account is password protected) and not even browsing the contents is allowed. No trace of an XP system is left, save the data and documents left on the HD that I want to back up. Just a sad, old NTFS drive with anal-retentive folder protections. Any ideas guys? Thanks.

[Phanguye]

if you are booting off a new harddrive, and have the old hard drive as a slave then there is no reason that anything on that drive should be unaccessable... file protection is run through the operating system which is not being used

[businezguy]

The problem you are having is you don't have permissions to the folders you are trying to access since you have installed and are using a different operating system from the one you used to create the folders in the first place.

However, as long as you have administrative rights, you can gain access to anything you don't have access to. Right click on the folder, and choose properties, and then choose the security tab (if you don't see a security tab, boot into safe mode and you will be abel to see the security tab in that mode). Now click on the advanced button, add, and choose Administrators, and click Apply. Then click on Advanced, Find Now, and choose Everyone and click apply. Give everyone full control, and your in business.