try to recover or just delete?

I have a hp pavilion 733n and the system was kinda messed up so I decided to do a reformat. I think hp automatically sets out a recovery partition on your harddrive so they don't have to give out the recovery disks. Anyway, I was given the option to do a destructive reformat, which is the basic format and wipes out everything, or a system reformat, which said it'll leave the data in tact.

I opted for the system reformat, since if that didn't work, then I could try the destructive one. it worked pretty well, it fixed the problem i had before. however, before the reformat, there were three users, and now there is just the main Owner one. the folders from the other users are still there, one I can still access and see the data one. however, one of the other uses, the whole folder was set private, so when anyone tried to access it, they were denied. However, now the user is gone and I can't access the files, nor can I delete them from another user.

So now i'm stuck and I don't know what to do, I have this huge folder that I can't access or delete or do anything. Is there someway I could gain access to it? or just delete it, cuz there has to be like 20 gb of stuff on there. Thanks, and if you didn't understand the explanation of the problem earlier (I know I can be kind of confusing), I'll try to explain it again differently if you'd like.

 

I came across this while browsing MG. I don't know if it will solve your problem...

http://www.majorgeeks.com/Unlocker_d4660.html

 

i did what halo said and hey! it worked! thanks guys!