access denied to documents and settings folder

Hello,
I hope I am allowed to ask for help with the following delema. I cannot access the documents and settings folder from an old drive, get a warning that says accesss is denied. I'll try to be as brief as possible. Bought a Dell from ebay, was not able to get administrators password. Was able to make a change to me as administrator, however original owners name was still on documents settings folder (C: documents and settings/orig owners name). Hard drive recently gave me blue screen of death and was not able to boot or repair drive using XP install disc. I purchased a new drive and I am up and running, however I cannot get into the doc and settings folder on the old drive to recover my data, all other material on the old drive is available. Am I out of luck here or is there a way to salvage the data?
Any help would be appreciated.
Thanks in advance.

 

Welcome to WindowsBBS don1400

You will need to Take Ownership of the folder.

 

Dave thanks for the link, I tried a number of ways to address the problem on Google, never gave Microsoft a thought....DUH!! Followed the instructions and, viola, I've got access to all the files. Many thanks again.
Don1400,
Green Bay

 

Happy to have helped.