Can't Copy Old Windows Files Access Denied?

i installed windows 7 pro x64 recently. i'm in the process of copying my own old windows xp files, as well as copying the backed up windows xp files from my friend's installation that were in my old hard drive. i've been battling windows 7 with permissions left and right to copy the remaining files. i'm trying to delete my old windows installation folder. there's a file in sytem32 that's preventing me from deleting. i've established ownership, i've changed it so i have fullprivileges, i've changed it to enable sharing, disable sharing, i have UAC down to medium, still keep getting you need permissions and the try again message, and no matter how many times i click on try again it comes back up.

now this is also happening when trying to copy files from my friend's old installation to my portable hard drive. we're talking about movie files, folders, documents, etc. still keep getting permission requests and no matter how i go about it, it keeps asking again and again and the files never copy. i thought maybe if i renamed the documents and settings folder that i'm grabbing them from, but that made no difference.it is so difficult to enjoy this new windows when at every step there is some assinine feature like this!