Win XP unable to view files on Vista Hard Drive

Hi, My Windows Vista PC has died after my brother in law went surfing onto some sites (not sure which ones) and now the PC will start up correctly, but after logging in, comes up with a Word perfect registration window as well as a popup box saying that something didn't load correctly and then the screen loses all of the desktop icons and stalls. I can't open task manager/any apps really as it goes to a blank screen and sometimes, but not always restarts on me. I attached a USB hard drive to the PC and it installed correctly so I opened up Windows explorer but it then closed itself really quickly. So brilliant plan, remove the HDD and put it into a USB enclosure and access it via my Win XP laptop. Now it comes up with an error msg of Access is denied when I try to get to most places in my profile (C:\Users\username) and I need the things out of my documents etc. I've been able to access some stuff, like my MYOB files, which is a blessing but can't access anything else. Is there a way in Win XP Pro that I can change these premissions?

Sure enough

You need to "take ownership". See this MS article: http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?…kb;en-us;308421

Thanks for that. I've done it and it working. My copy of Norton 360 has already found numerous copies of Trojan.Vundo so I will be having harsh words my BIL. I'll reboot it, clean it up and then see if it's running fine… May save me rebuilding it.