I have just tried again to open a file somehow and it looks like it has been encrypted to save disk space before it has been moved to the new XP..with no users that have access to the file on this copy of XP.

What do u mean by moved all the files to working copy of XP. You are not copying ur files to XP but you are copying ur files to Hard drive. How many OS u install it doesn't matter ur files are still on the same Hard drive. You should boot ur computer with a bootable disk and move all ur files (Files in Mydocuments, My Music, Desktop which u have saved, but not the program files, documents and settings and windows folders) from C drive to another drive bcoz this is the drive were the OS is installed. Format C drive and reinstall OS. Your files in other drives will be safer and they can be accessed after u install ur new copy of OS

intresting, can you start off by stateing your OS version (pro, ...) , sp level, and give us the exact error code? furthermore, where did you install the 2nd copy of windows too? another drive... is your hdd partitioned? if you have another working copy of windows on your hdd why do you need winternals? where are you trying to move your data to? and from where? (drive letters or folders please)

also, about your stop run, assuming you gave the exact error code...
http://support.microsoft.com/default...b;en-us;318666

any way, we need more information here... you didn't state where this "access denied" error is occuring, what your moving to where.. what program you are in (windows, winternals)...

i think i am having a similar problem as the originalthread author....first i just switched from Mac to PC so i knew i would get into a lot of trouble messing with random settings unlike the stuff i could do safely on a Mac...but i used some registry cleaner and it messed up my laptop so i used the gateway restore disk that came with the laptop and because i did not have a backup partition the restore disk was still able to install a clean copy of XP home and back up the entire C drive i had previously...the program files, the Windows folder, and most imp my documents folder. the back up folder is named "My Backup -- 06-09-21 0207AM" automatically by the gateway utility and i can access and open everything in the backup folder EXCEPT my user folder which has all my songs and papers for school....when i click on the user folder...in my case named "Alex_Beall" i get the great message that the folder is not acessable and on the next line windows states that access is denied...there is no numerical erroc code that pops up just the message. So how come i cant access this one and most imp to me but all the rest i could care less about i cant. is there a simple way to fix this. i tried to put all the info you uys requested from the original posted in my problem but i dont know if ya need more since ive been using a PC for 3 weeks now after 4 years of Mac....thanks for any help

I have a similar problem. I was transferrin some pictures from a cd to an external hard drive when all of the sudden it froze. I cancelled the process and rebooted the sysytem. Now i cant get into any of my icon including my computer. basically i cant do anything. I have been able to use my secondary log on name but it does not have any of the privilages of the main administrator. Also i cannot delete the files from the external hard drive. Is this a virus?

In my past experience, this is a user privileges issue. I had this happen a couple of months ago. I think it occurs because the user name might be the same as beforw for the "owner" of the folder, but it isn't really on the new system. So access is denied even if you have Admin rights.

How did I get round this? I used the CMD window in another PC to get the files off. Then I copied them back on the original machine.