Cannot access folders which used to be administrator's

My old computer's motherboard died. My new computer runs under Windows XP Home (as did my old computer). I took the hard drive out of the old computer and placed it into an external hard drive enclosure which hooks up to my new computer via USB.

I can access all folders on the now external hard drive except those folders which were reserved for the administrator of the old computer, namely "my documents" and "favorites" etc. I get a message saying "My documents is not accessable. Access denied ".

How can I get my new computer's administrator to access the old administrator's folders?
Adding the old admin's name to the new computer's list of users doesn't work.
Local folder sharing is greyed out on the new computer.

 

The original folders and files were created under a different Security token than you now have. They are protected not by username and password, but by a unique SID combination that creates the token.

Every new install of XP creates a random-number generated new token for even the same Username.

Assert ownership:
http://support.microsoft.com/defaul...port/kb/articles/q308/4/21.asp&NoWebContent=1