Problems "transferring" files from time machine to new hard drive

I was experieincing the spinning beach ball of death so I replaced my hard drive with a new one.  I am running mountain lion (10.8.2) and the new Hard drive has two partions - one for "start up" which I was able to use migration assisant to move over my applications from my time machine.  The problem I am having is that I can't figure out how to get my user account data transferred to my the data partition (journal extended) on my new hard drive.
When I enter time machine I can't "see" my last back updates before I changed hard drives. 
I put my old hard drive in a case and it "isn't working" so I can't just copy data from my old hard drive.  It did work initially but now it doesn't mount and I can't see it in disk utility.
Any Ideas on how I can get my user data off my time machine back up?
I forgot to mention that when I go into my external hard drive containing my time machine via finder and click on the folder with my user data I'm not able to open the various files - they have a red "-" and it says, The folder “Desktop” can’t be opened because you don’t have permission to see its contents.  In disk utility I can't run repair disk permision on my time machine drive because it is grayed out.
Thanks - Dave

I see. Don't do that. I do not believe using Migration Assistant is a valid method of accomplishing what you intend.
Furthermore, unless you are using the "Enter Time Machine" feature, you really shouldn't pick and choose what you want to copy from a Time Machine backup... "no user serviceable parts inside". You can certainly find and individual files and folders in the Finder, but you will run into the permissions problems you describle. I would not attempt to circumvent those protections.
As I understand Time Machine, you must either restore a volume from a Time Machine backup, thereby erasing the volume first, or restore individual files and folders by using "Enter Time Machine" when the backup has already been properly designated for the source.
Since your replacement hard disk - the source, now - is technically new, the latter is not an option. It's as if you were trying to restore to a different computer. This can't be done.

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