Computer crashed and unattrievable ,fitted another hard drive and copied xp onto this now i want to copy my files and folders across from my old hard drive to this new hard drive but it comes up with access denied or files write protected. i have made sure i am at administrator level.any ideas

Well, I don't know the nature of the crash, but if it was a virus that caused it or something, it is possible your hard drive was corrupted, and you might not be able to transfer and files. Of course, if that was the case, I presume Windows would give you a different error message, but I guess it depends if/how badly things went wrong :( Good luck. Maybe you can look into data recovery software?

Have you tried to ghost the image over to the new HDD from the old one? Do a Google search for Ghosting and Ghosting utilities, maybe helpful !! Byte This

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421 should work for you Hopefully my advice will help you...Please post back with your results....thanks

try this: http://support.microsoft.com/defaul... Do yourself a favor BACKUP!

You may have to take ownership of the files/folders. A google search will lead you to instructions on how to do it. Please let us know if you found someone's advice to be helpful.

This article describes how to take ownership of a file or a folder where you have been denied access. If you must access a file or a folder that you do not have access to, you must take ownership of that file or folder. When you do this, you replace the security permissions to have access. MORE INFORMATION How to take ownership of a folder. Note You must be logged on to the computer with an account that has administrative credentials. If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an account that has Administrative rights to have access to the Security tab. If you are using Windows XP Professional, you must disable Simple File Sharing. By default, Windows XP Professional uses Simple File sharing when it is not joined to a domain. For additional information about how to do this, click the following article number to view the article in the Microsoft Knowledge Base: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/307... How to disable simplified sharing and set permissions on a shared folder in Windows XP To take ownership of a folder, follow these steps: 1. Right-click the folder that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties. 2. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears). 3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab. 4. In the Name list, click your user name, or click Administrator if you are logged in as Administrator, or click the Administrators group. If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box. 5. Click OK, and then click Yes when you receive the following message: You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control? All permissions will be replaced if you press Yes. Note folder name is the name of the folder that you want to take ownership of. 6. Click OK, and then reapply the permissions and security settings that you want for the folder and its contents. Back to the top How to take ownership of a file Note You must be logged on to the computer with an account that has administrative credentials. To take ownership of a file, follow these steps: 1. Right-click the file that you want to take ownership of, and then click Properties. 2. Click the Security tab, and then click OK on the Security message (if one appears). 3. Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab. 4. In the Name list, click Administrator, or click the Administrators group, and then click OK. The administrator or the Administrators group now owns the file. To change the permissions on the files and folders under this folder, go to step 5. 5. Click Add. 6. In the Enter the object names to select (examples) list, type the user or group account that you want to give access to the file. For example, type Administrator. 7. Click OK. 8. In the Group or user names list, click the account that you want, and then select the check boxes of the permissions that you want to assign that user. 9. When you are finished assigning permissions, click OK