Can't view data on external drive

Corrupt ntuser.dat file so I got bought terabyte western digital external drive to copy c:\Users\Dad profile to the J: (western digital). OS is Vista. Had numerous corrupt registry entries that made computer behave irratically. Couple ran without antivirus or firewall for a year. Restored OS back to dell factory settings. Moms two files that I copied over show up - documents and pictures. The j: has the tree and subfolders for dads profile but no info appears. the j: shows I'm using 8 gb but I can't see it or retrieve it. Please help. I should note the ntuser.dat and ntuser files are in the recycle bin of dads profile settings. I deleted them because he had more than mom did for ntuser files. How do I view the files on western digital? Could the ntuser files be the reason?