I am playing with an installation of 2.4.5 and am having trouble moving xoops_data and xoops_lib out of document root while allowing XOOPS to still have access to the folders and files. Have have read every thread out there and none seem to apply to my situation. Any help here would be greatly appreciated =)

Can you explain your situation?

Maybe list the host you are using to give us a better idea?

Chances are if you moved them out of document root and gave them write access you just have to figure out the correct path to use to get to it. Can be helpful to install the xoops first with everything in your document root and then move them out after the install. That way you get the path name as used by the document root and can use that to move the data and lib folders then modify your mainfile.php to reflect the new path names. As well as being able to test your install to make sure it works before moving those out of document root.