simple stuff help

[TwoRails]

My main system has been down for a week now and I'm suffering using vista on my laptop... How can you do a simple things like view all the files on the drive? Yes, I'm use to XP but nothing is the same. I don't know how to change it to view protected files, other accounts, and the like. That started with a simple task of finding where the email files are located.

How do you do this (what should be obvious) thing?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

edit:

OK, a hundred menus later, I found it...

Now, any idea on how do I get permission to do a simple write to an external hard drive???

TIA

TR