Windows xp i locked my files!!

hello there bit of a problem here...

okay this is what happend i restarted my computer. then it just kept restarting over and over again even in safe mode. so i reinstalled windows xp over the top of the old one as i have some very important college work on my hdd which i need. windows xp installed fine over the top of the old OS and stopped the restarting. BUT! now when i try to get into my documents where my files are it says

C:/Documents and Settings/Adminastrator is not accessible

Access is Denied


any help to get my documents back would be great ty

_ _ _ _ _ _ is all i can think of.
or maybe new HD? if it kept restarting in safemode i would guess that it's something w/ your HDD. you didn't like shake it around or anything did u? but then again, i'm no A+ certified genius. :P

Try this - not sure if it will help or not, but Right click the directory that your files are in, and go to Sharing --> Security (Make sure Administrator is highlighted) ---> Advanced ---> Owner ---> then change ownership of the directory(s) to your new Administrator.
That will make you the owner of the directories and you should be able to access them now.

are u sure your new account you setup after you re-installed windows xp is an admin acct?

if not, make yourself an admin acct..

if this is not possible due to the fact that your account may just be a user level account, reboot and before xp boots hit f8 (i think, whatever key boots you to safe mode in xp).. for some odd reason its possible to create admin accounts, delete admin accounts, etc in safe mode (XP PRO only from what i've heard).. make yourself an administrator account while in safe mode, reboot, login with your new admin account and then it might work..

but - i've had this same exact thing happen to me b4.. i hate to tell you this but you might have lost all of your work.. I lost nearly 1 gig worth of music i wrote over the past 2 yrs.. And belive me, i did quite a bit of searching to see if i could recover those files and nothing seemed to work.. what the problem is (i think) is that windows xp is looking for your files in a directory that looks like it physically exists, but in reality dosent due to the fact that after re-installing xp it created a whole new set of folders in "Documents And Settings".. this is where files actually reside such as your My Documents, My Pictures, etc reside.. XP just makes them look like my documents is its own folder, but its actually not :(

hope that helps

My Documents is your profile directory. Their are also some directories in there where Micro$oft thinks you would like to store your docs, musics, etc.... If you use the method I mentioned above you can 'brute force' ownership of any file or directory. That is what it is for. Unless, like you mentioned above, the path doesnt exist and it thinks it does. Then that is a registry fix. But you shouldnt have to ever lose any of your files like that. Only if your hard drive completely wacks out and you dont want to spend the money to have a 3rd party retrieve your files.