Hey, this is my first post, im kinda advanced with xp so I thought I would try to help you out. This is just a guess, but when you went to take ownership of the files, you should have clicked on the security tab, clicked on advanced, clicked the owner tab, then where it says chance owner to, click the username that you're using. Before you click apply, did you check the box "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects?" I remember that was a problem when I was trying to take control of some files when my computer crashed. And you said when you do copy the file to a cd-rw, it says read only? It should... Whenever a file is on any type of rewriteable cd, even though its rewriteable, you cannot save data to it from a normal program; you have to save the file on a hard disk, and then burn it to the cd with cd burning software. If you copy it to a hard disk, then you can right click, go to proporties, and uncheck read only, so then you can modify it without resaving it. James