copying files from a laptop hard drive; I can't access the users folder

My searches didn't turn anything up, but I have a pretty general question about file access rights... I'm trying to separate a potential problem with the hard drive vs. a security "feature" in Vista.

I'm having a hardware problem (maybe a virus though) with my laptop and am trying to access the hard drive to pull files off of it. I'm set up for it to appear as USB removable drive on another computer (both machines run Vista Premium) and can navigate most folders (eg, program files etc...). The ones I want to retrieve are all in the "Users\$username$" subfolders and when I try to open that folder, Vista chimes in with it's administrator check-in, so once I put in the password it apparently should work, BUT it never loads the folder contents into the right-hand pane. The progress bar on top slowly loads to very near the top, but never finishes. I've waited about 10 minutes before giving up on it.

So the question is whether I should even expect to be able to view these files without hacking in somehow or if this is part of my problem.... I'm doing a virus scan on that hard drive as a slave on the other computer now, so the jury's still out on that front.

Thanks!
Dan

I can not give an answer, as I have a very similar issue. My Dell laptop with Vista Business, has crashed, "missing boot loader" with restore from previouys save point failing as well. I am able to use the command prompt (dos) to copy documents and photos via mem stick to another PC. BUT can not locate OUTLOOK 2007 email store and contacts. I believe they are located deep in \users\"name" but can not find the .PST file.

Using dos string - c:\xcopy c:\users\gibbonz\*.pst f:\users /s /e

I am attemting to rebuild the bootloader with "bootrec.exe" but not havin g much luck. Searched and found cd bootable vista OS so will try that.

Hope you have more luck and get some advice.