Taking of encryption

I have been denied access to a the files
in two folders on my notebook, I am running windows 2000 O/S with SP4. Anytime I try opening any of them I am told I donot have access privileges or that the document is either encrypted or read only. I have checked on the properties of these files and have realised the are all encrypted, If I tick of the encrypt content to secure data and ok / apply I get the following message

an error occurred applying attributes to the file,
file path and name
then access denied
with the following options to choose from
Ignore Ignore all retry cancel
non of these options solves the problem,
These are my files and I have logged on this notebook with administrator rights.
Can someone please help me gain access to these file.