Access denied message from a partition

We have a group of laptops that have been partitioned to place "images" of the OS onto. Basically we create a workstation configuration, create an image, and put the image on the hard drive partition, so we don't have to access a server or external hard drive, because that takes too long.

So, we want a copy of the most recent image before we make any changes, and overwrite it with the new image, so we want to copy from the partition to an external hard drive or even to the C: drive, but it keeps giving an access denied message, like the computer is still writing to the partition or like those files are in use. But I don't know what it could be. We have some desktop computers that were used in an identical manner (as far as I know) and there is no problem copying the files, from the hard drive, but the image files won't budge. I can even go in and format the drive if I wanted to, I just can't copy from.


Any ideas on how to get that image from the partition onto a removable disk or even onto the C:\ so I could copy it from the C to the removable disk.


I wonder if I could go into the command prompt and move it that way...hmmm confused



BTW, it is XP Pro with SP2. Thanks.


Ian