Windows Vista Access denied on everything in all accounts.

This is a sony vaio laptop. I don't think the model matters as this is an OS problem. I enabled the Administrator account; but, that doesn't help. I can boot the system into Windows and view all the file and folder names without a problem; but, I cannot copy any files to an external drive or to any other place on the hard disk. Access is denied on everything. I cannot create folders or save even a text file that I create. Access denied.

If I boot using a BartPE disk, the hard disk doesn't show up in the file manager at all. All that shows is my external USB drive as drive C and the DVD as drive D.

I need to copy all the user data to a backup device so I can then run factory system recovery.

Any suggestions?

 

Turns out the drive, itself, is defective. It passed Seagate's SMART and Basic tests; but, it failed the extended test.

The owner doesn't want to pay for further data recovery efforts so I'll just mark this solved.

Thanks for your help.