How do I copy backed-up files from an external hard drive back to my MBA, but under a different user than the one from which they were backed up?

On the advice of the Chicago Mac Genius Bar, in order to get better performance on my few years old MBA, I copied my Home folders (but not Library) to an external hard drive, created a new user, deleted the old user, and tried to copy the Home folder contents from the external hard drive back to the MBA under the new user. However, I get an error message and can't open most of the folders on the external hard drive (e.g. "The folder “Desktop” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.") Help! Thanks.

As captfred says, yes (as long as the drive is formatted for a Mac, not Windoze).
You might want to review the [Time Machine Tutorial|http://www.apple.com/findouthow/mac/#timemachinebasics] and perhaps browse [Time Machine - Frequently Asked Questions|http://web.me.com/pondini/Time_Machine/FAQ.html] (or use the link in *User Tips* at the top of this forum).

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