Bravo to RealBlackStuff! He solved my problem that I've been struggling with for days. I stumbled on this forum just yesterday and I'm hooked. I want to thank you for your post below because I've been struggling on how to access the "owner" folder in my defective old hard drive with the following error message "folder is not accessible - access is denied".
Thanks for the remedy you gave below.

[I]There may be a case of encryption on the old W2K disks, that you have not (yet) installed on XP-home.
Also, you will be a different user on XP from W2K, even if you used the same name. You can take ownership of these files as follows:
Boot XP-home into Safe Mode (Press F8 a few times when starting up) as an administrator. Now use Explorer to go to the folders etc. on your W2K-drives, right-click them, select Properties, click the Security tab and click OK if a security message pops up. Click Advanced, then Owner tab. In the Name list select your (administrator's) name. Mark the Replace Owner on subcontainers and objects check box. Click OK, Yes and OK.

For taking ownership of files, rightclick them, Security tab, Advanced, Owner tab. In Name list select Administrator or Admin-group and click OK. Click Add and in the "Enter the object...list" type a user or group account or Administrator. Click OK. In the group or user name list, click the account you want (e.g. Administrator), then tick the check boxes for permissions, e.g. Full Control [Allow].

Hope this gets you on your way[I]

Hi Lexirad,

Thanks for that its always nice to get some positive feedback about the experience people have with the TS forum,

I found that people were having that kind of issue a while back so I made this page up.

How to change the rights in XP or 2K.

Regards

I'm going to bookmark your page and thx.