Plenty of "access is denied" on C:/ after changing XP permissions via Windows 7

Hi All!

In brief:
Might there be a way from Windows 7 to remove all limitations from a drive so that Windows XP will be able to access everything?

Background:
I wanted to backup my Dell Precision XP laptop which was crashing a lot. The plan is to then reinstall Windows from CD. So I took out the hard drive to copy everything to a folder on my Win 7 desktop. Even as Administrator I had virtually no access to the data for this purpose until I messed around with permissions and gave myself full access.

Now the drive is (almost) all backed up, but when I put the drive back in the laptop I get widespread "access is denied". Cannot access anything much e.g. no desktop or personal settings and so on. Plus, unfortunately I have no idea what the Administrator password is on the laptop.

So, is it possible to remove all security on a drive via Win 7 so that Win XP can access everything again?

Thank you,
Nick

 

copied files from win 7 to xp and cannot access files

copy above into your search engine , I got lots of hits so you will need to read through to see which hit fits your issue best

 

Thanks, Elizabeth.
I saw a lot about file sharing but my situation is a bit different.

So I have gone straight to repair install since I still have CDs though it seems a bit more complicated than when I did it last time e.g. asking for Administrator password. But I found a thread at Microsoft that looks helpful for that hitch:

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us...n/bd9c4cdb-26e0-4fcf-9017-870570716c4d?page=2