Problem: Can't access XP data on SATA Drive

[wingnutsglory]

I recently purchased a SATA drive and adapter card with the intent of 1) reducing my chances of losing data because of old HDD and 2) installing a fresh load of XP. I installed the card and drive, and loaded XP, and it all booted up great (much faster now). However, when I tried to access all of the My Documents info on my old drive, I get an error message telling me that access is denied. Ok, that makes sense because I have a multiple account (family) computer and don't want other user snooping. So, I thought that I might try to disconnect the new drive/card and boot the old install of XP to disable the protections. Nope - about one second after the WIN XP startup screen appears, the whole system reboots. I've tried to repair the installation, boot in Safe Modes, etc., all to no avail. I'm wondering if I should attempt to reinstall XP on top of the old installation, but am worried that I might lose all of my personal files.

Does anyone know of any way to get by the access issues or fix this otherwise??? I need my data

Thanks!!!