Major XP Problem

[Tecnomuzik]

I'm not sure if this is the right place to post this but..... I have a situation that I need help with, its kind of complicated so I hope I don't make it worse....

My uncle wanted to format his hdd and install XP, so my cousin took my uncle's hdd, put it into his own computer and backed up my uncle's hdd to a folder on his desktop. After they did this, my other genius cousin disconnected the hard drive while the computer was still on, which totaly screwed up the main hard drive to the point where it wouldn't boot. So they loaded XP on the main hdd again, no format, just reloaded the files. When they did this, they created a new user named "Michael" which was the same name of the user on the previous XP install with my uncle's data on his desktop. Now the new profile is named michael.windows and when the try to access the old "michael" profile to get the contents on his desktop, they get an "Access Denied" error. Both the old and new user "Michael" have administrative rights, and they've even tried logging in as the computer administrator. What do they have to do to get at the contents of the old user profile? Any help would be GREATLY appreciated!
Respond here or e-mail me: david.savage@davesland.com

Thanks!
Dave

 

[madmatt]

your best bet is to reformat the drive and start fresh. over writing the current install of XP is not a very good idea. any software that has made changes to XP system files may not run properly. furthermore, your registry is probably a mess now.

you should try the transfer files and settings feature available on the XP CD-ROM. also available in the system tools folder (usually in accessories).

 

[rettahc]

The only way that I can think of to get access is by logging on as administrator and taking ownership of the folder do this by right clicking on the folder, select properties, security tab and I think it may be under advanced.

The only problem with this is that you may have to do this for every sub-folder you want access to.