Reading Local File from Java Servlet within Tomcat 7

I am upgrading from Server 2003 to 2012.  A Java Servlet that worked in 2003 is being upgraded to 2012, Tomcat 7, and JDK 8. I access the local C: drive file with Java Servlet code. I get the error msg Error: java.io.FileNotFoundException (the system cannot find the file specified).  Is there a way to give rights to Tomcat 7 to read from a local drive?  Tomcat is running as a Service.