Windows 7: HELP !!!! My computer is totally locked

I have a Dell laptop with windows 7 os. There is no disk partition. Hence entire 320 GB of hard disk is under C-drive. I had mistakenly deleted all users profiles of C drive. What excly i did was, i went into the "security" tab under "properties" of C drive. there were 4 user profiles mentioned there, I mistakenly deleted all the 4 user profiles.
The entire C drive is now locked. i cannot access the drive. it shows as an empty drive. However there was a shortcut to one of the folders & i can only view the files in that folder, i cannot change any data in the C drive, i cannot even download anything from the net.
I have tried removing the hard disk & copying the data into another computer. But the hard disk is showing as not accessible even when connected to another computer with Windows xp OS.

I have very important data on the hard disk & do not want to lose any of it.

I do not know what to do now, as im desperate to get back my data & use my laptop,

Plzzzz suggest some solutions through which i can repair my Laptop.

Hi! pavankumar, welcome to 7F

Two thoughts come to mind.......

First try a restore point. Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\System, then click on System protection.
At the top you will see instructions to start a system restore.

Second, Go to Control Panel\All Control Panel Items\User Accounts\Manage Accounts, and just create new accounts.

Try downloading "Hirens Boot disk" which is free, run it to boot to miniXP windows, start an explorer window, then recover the files you need.

When you put the drive in another computer, did you take ownership of it before you tried to read it ??

@ Anak : I have already tried to do a System restore. But windows doesnt allow it. Windows also doesnt allow me to create any new accounts. It displays an error message both the times.

@ pricetech : could u please elaborate on how do i take the ownership of the disk after connecting it to any other pc . Any help would be gr888.

@ wilywombat : i will definitely try to do this. Is it 100 % safe, as far as recovery of data is concerned??? will no data of mine be lost in the process ??

To answer your question of data loss during the usage of boot cd, No. It won't cause data loss.

Doing this from memory;
Right click on the drive in Windows Explorer and select Properties.
Click the Security tab.
Click the Advanced button (close to the bottom)
Click the Owner tab.
Under XP find either your username or administrators and select that, then click Apply.
Under Windows 7 Click the Edit button, then select your username or administrators and click Apply.
Either way, make sure the checkbox marked Replace owner on subcontainers and objects is checked.
The process may take little bit, but you, or the Administrators group, become the owner of the drive and all its contents.

My desktop (Win-7, 64-b) locked tighter than a drum once with Google maps in display when I attempted to move the map a little! They must be desperate to get me to use Chrome Had to unplug PC from UPS to reboot.

pavankumar. If you can, follow pricetech's advice his memory still good!

Is this your laptop or one that you acquired?