Image Copy killed my original and the copy

Hi, I'm a trial user and came across Acronis True Image as I wanted to make a full copy of my C:\ boot drive (to upgrade my current one to Win7).

I downloaded the software I found from the website and installed it without any hitches. I then went ahead and had Acronis do an "automatic" image copy from my C: drive to an external L: drive. It asked me to reboot the system, so I did and it went through the copy sequence successfully and restarted.

After it restarted, I noticed my computer was hanging. It would boot through bios and just sit there (not going into windows). I freaked and plugged the external (copied image) into my laptop to find that all my files were fine and dandy (yay!), EXCEPT my /Documents and Settings/{my user name}/ folder was now inaccessible "Access is denied." I'm hoping hoping this is a security feature for Acronis. I tried booting straight into the external as well, but it just blue screens on bootup. I booted to another harddrive on the same system, and my original (C:\) drive is in the same shape (all files are there, except can't access the /Documents and Settings/{my user name}/ folder.

I have not created a recovery disk yet and am in the process of trying to do that. What should be my next steps?