I'm trying to back up stuff off the hard disk on the family PC. I can copy my own stuff but can't access anyone else's. Can't change anything in the Security and Sharing tab of File Properties. I went and took the passwords off the other user accounts. If I now log in to my mother's account, I can access stuff on her desktop but can't access her My Documents folder.

I once figured out how to do it but can't remember how to give myself ownership of all files. Safe Mode has buggered up.

Failing that, I has a IDE->USB caddy so can connect it to my own laptop, but still get the Access is Denied problems.

XP Home on both family PC and laptop.

Any suggestions? Neither google nor m$ are currently being helpful.

Which OS version please.

In folder options turn off the sharing wizard or "use simple sharing" option.

Then right click a folder, go to security, Advanced, owner. Select yourself as owner, tick the box saying replace permissions on subfolders etc. OK out of all that.
Wait for permissions to change then if needed grant yourself full control of the files.

This should be right (although I've just done it from memory as I'm on my mac at the moment)

As stated in the penultimate line of my last post, Windows XP Home Edition on both the family pc hdd and on my laptop.

Saspro - I don't have that option! Saw that solution on the microsoft website but the option isn't there for me and i don't know why. Will have a look at services.msc later and see if I stopped anything.

I might try the recovery console from the XP installation disc and see if I can repair the installation so I can at least boot up to safe mode. Annoying that I can't access Administrator on my laptop without going in to safe mode because then I can't access USB devices.

I'm tempted to just wipe the C partition because all of My Documents for all users is on the D partition. Stupid thing is family insist on storing files on the desktop, which just makes it difficult to do anything.

Set the machine to use the welcome screen, reboot, then when you're on the welcome screen hit ctrl-alt-del a couple of times & type administrator in to the box

I've done that but something about priveleges or accounts or something. Will try again though.

Well I downloaded an applet from microsoft that allowed me to access the security privileges and take ownership, which I did. Unfortunately, I still couldn't open the files and hence couldn't copy them across.

I tried Knoppix (as apparently Linux doesn't respect Windows restrictions), but unfortunately, still couldn't access the folders.

Ran chkdsk, and for some reason safemode decided to work. So currently as Administrator and copying the files across to my other HDD. I just hope I'll be able to access them afterwards under my normal username.