Copying Vista folders from XP operating system disaster

Help!

I offered to help a friend back up her data so that she can send her PC to HP for them to install a new motherboard.

I have a SATA to USB adapter, so I connected her hard drive to my computer and attempted to copy her data down to my computer. The trouble is, her computer OS is Vista and mine is XP. I ran into "access denied" errors.

I took ownership of all of the files on her hard drive so that I could copy them.

That didn't work. Folders like \Documents and Settings and \users\%username%\Documents\My Pictures gave me an error message:

<folder name> refers to a location that is unavailable. It could be on a hard drive on this computer, or on a network. ... etc.

I then booted from USB with Ubuntu and while I can now open the folders, there is nothing in them!

Ack!

I haven't asked her if this is what I should have expected because I can't imagine her wanting me to back up her hard drive if there was nothing on it.

Please help me figure out a way to get her files back!