I had some personal files and folders I wanted locked so I right clicked on a the folder that had all of them in there. Went to the security tab and hit deny, I thought for everyone else but me. Well now when I try to go in and look at them my computer says I do not have the permissions. I was finally unable to unlock that folder, then a few folders inside of it. I have thousands of files in this mother...... and I can't be going into each one, one at a time unlocking it. I really don't even know how I unlocked most of them, just random luck I think. So mostly I need to know how to unlock the whole folder and all the files so that I have access to them again. Otherwise how do I unlock each one individually. I have windows xp that come with a new HP laptop, the files I had placed in an external hard drive. Please help me, some of these files I need instant access too and soon.