Western Digital Answer at WinXP Installation for SATA HD.
Problem:
After reinstalling the operating system on the master drive, you receive "access denied" errors when attempting to access files and folders on the secondary (data) hard drive.

Cause:
All files and folders contained on the secondary (data) hard drive will still have permissions and privileges from the original installation of the operating system. Since the ownership of these files belong to a different user account (on the original installation of the operating system), you may see "access denied" errors when trying to access these files.

Resolution:
You will need to change the "ownership" of these files to the new user account. Please follow the directions below:

For Windows 2000, please follow the directions in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 268019 to take ownership of the files and folders on the hard drive.

For Windows XP, please follow the directions in Microsoft Knowledge Base Article 308421 to take ownership of the files and folders on the hard drive.

Accessory information: Western Digital Installation Info general page. Scroll down to external drives. (The "Full Installation" .pdf is the same document for SATAI and SATAII drives.)

John