Access Denied - Folder Ownership

Windows XP Home was pretty hosed on this older Sony laptop (I had a thread about it earlier with FIXBOOT questions). Anyway, I did a repair install, but it looks more like a fresh install. What I mean is the desktop has no icons, My Documents is empty, just like if I had formatted the HD. The drive was not formatted and if I go to C:\Documents and Settings I can see the previous user's folders. But I can't get into two of the users: Access is Denied. I'm assuming this is because they were password protected. I have tried taking ownership as described at Microsoft (here http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421/en-us) but there is no Security tab. I then read this http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308419/en-us#4 about making the Security tab show up, but in Folder Options, there is no choice for Simple File Sharing under the View tab.....
HELP!

 

Be sure you log on as "Administrator" in Safe Mode.

Don't log in under your user name just assuming you have Admin privileges, it might not work that way.

Steve