Post crash security

Recently, my computer crashed - thankfully my hard drive was left in
tact but all my user settings ect were wiped, so I had to reinstall
programs and such even though they remained on my hard drive.

My problem is that I had a password on my account and with the crash
all the profiles were wiped, there still listed in C:/documents and
settings, but It wont let me access the folder because of the password
on it, and although I remember my password I can find no way to put it
in and access my files.

Can I either gain access using my password or remove the password from
the account?

The computer in question is a 5 year old dell, and at the time of the
crash was starting to die anyway, so I now have a nice shiny new NEC
desktop pre-made box.

Anyway any advice on my problem is appreciated.


--
Mr Good