How can I open files on a hard drive that had previously been protected?

Question

Here is the thing. One of my computer's memory boards was fried (my bad, dust. BEWARE THE DUST!) but the hard drive was fine. Instead of replacing the motherboard, I elected to have my hard drive made into an external hard drive.

Now, I can access everything I had on my computer but the files that I found most important, those that were made protected through Windows permissions. Even on the external hard drive, those files give me an "Access denied" message.

I did manage to make the My Docynents folders shared so I could open those, but the files within are still denying me access.

Does anyone know a way to be able to access these files again from this external hard drive?

Answer 1

Right-click on the folder, click Properties, go to the Security tab, and change the permissions. If you don't see a Security tab, disable simple file sharing or go into safe mode (if you have XP Home).