Need help opening old harddrive files

my old computer broke, so i got a new computer and it has Vista.
I took my old Harddrive IDE out and put it in a device that reads hard drives and plugged it into my computer with an USB and when i try to open my files it doesn't let me because access was denied.
Help can someone tell me how to open my files?

i did try security tab and spent an hour doing that and when it was applying security setting, accesss denied windows popped out.....

I'm assuming here that your problem is that you're trying to access files from one of the user directories on the old drive and it's security permissions are preventing you from viewing the files.

You need to do two things:

1) Take ownership of the files. You need to do this first in order to change their permissions.

2) Change the permissions on the files so that you can view them.


To take ownership, right-click on the topmost folder for the files you want to access, select "Properties", click the "Security" tab, click the "Advanced" button, click the "Owner" tab, and click "Edit". Select the account you want to be the owner, make sure the "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects" is checked, and click OK.


To set the permissions, right-click on the folder again, select "Properties", click the "Security" tab, click "Advanced", click the "Permissions" tab, and click "Change Permissions". Uncheck the "Include inheritable permissions..." checkbox if it's checked, and if you do then click the "Add" button on the Warning Messagebox. Check the "Replace all child object permissions..." checkbox, select the account that you want to have access, and click "Edit...". Check the checkbox in the "Allow" column next to "Full Control" and then click the OK button on this and the other dialogue boxes.