I just reinstalled Windows XP on a 2-year-old comp that was getting screwed up by adware and such...
Right after the reinstall and subsequent reboot, as soon as i clicked on the account to log in as owner, it said "C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Desktop is not accessible. Access is denied." Now, I figured that this might have been because I forgot to disable the administrator password before I reinstalled XP, but after setting a new password, the message remained. Now, I'm not quite sure where it's getting the desktop that shows now, but...it might be from All Users. Can anyone help? This is a really annoying problem...
Oh, by the way. Window$ also denies access to C:\Documents and Settings\Owner\Favorites. I haven't checked a whole lot of others yet, but I think that might be the only other folder that is blocked.
try setting up the permissions...sounds like you've got remnants from the previous install...to do this:
1. log in as a user who is part of the administrator group (administrator is an excellent choice)
2. open "My Computer"
3. right click on the C: drive
4. click properties
5. click on the "Security" tab
6. in the "Group or user names:" section, you'll probably see some "user" that looks like a bunch of random letters and numbers with dashes in between. highlight that user and click on remove to get rid of this, you don't need it
7. still in the same section, click on the "Administrators" group
8. down below in the "Permission for Administrators" section, click on all the "Allow" checkboxes (except "Special Permissions" because it won't let you anyway)
9. click on the "Advanced" button
10. the "Advanced Security Settings for C:" window should have popped up
11. click and highlight the "Administrators" group once again
12. click on the "Replace permission entries on all..." checkbox
13. click on the "Apply" button
14. wait for it to do its thing
this should let you in on that file that you couldn't get into. repeat this process for every physical/logical drive that you have. hope this helps, post back and let us know how it turns out!