Finding lost files

So I woke up this morning and my computer had a black screen that said something like Windows can not load, the host file is corrupt. I did a restore and got it back working, but now I am missing all of my files that were on the user called "user", everything that was on the Desktop now can not be found, but the hard drive still has the same amount of used space. When I go to documents and settings and try to get into user it says access denied. How can I get those files back, I would appreciate any help in recovering the files

 

see if this link helps you. i've used it a few times myself. g/l, sos


http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;308421&sd=tech <-- How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP

edit - doh, i forgot to ask what your os was (that link is for xp home or pro).