SOLVED Hard Drive Permissions

[Matt William]

Hi all,

I recently re installed Windows on my machine and as a result files on my secondary hard drive can't be accessed. Initially I couldn't even access the hard drive but I changed the permissions on the drive and now I can navigate through the drive but I still can't do anything with any of the files on there. Please help!

Thanks in advance

Matt

 

[Trouble]

IF your secondary drive contains only data files you might try taking ownership at the root of the drive and see if that helps with the problem.
I've found this helpful in similar situations
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/
It simply adds a take ownership option to the right click context menu.

 

[Matt William]

IF your secondary drive contains only data files you might try taking ownership at the root of the drive and see if that helps with the problem.
I've found this helpful in similar situations
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/
It simply adds a take ownership option to the right click context menu.

Sorry I'm not that experienced with regedit. Where exactly would I navigate to, to take ownership of a whole drive?

 

[Trouble]

Take a look at that article you should see a link to
http://www.howtogeek.com/wp-content/uploads/TakeOwnership.zip
Just extract it and double click and merge InstallTakeOwnership.reg

 

[Matt William]

Nope didn't work. All I did though was install said file. I didn't do any editing. But I did notice that some files I can tamper with and some I can't. Seems to be random. Some Notepad txt files open and some don't. Some Excel files open and some don't?

Ever come across this?

Thanks,
Matt

 

[Trouble]

I guess we need to understand what exactly is happening.

Some Notepad txt files open and some don't. Some Excel files open and some don't?

What happens when the don't? Do you get an error message (access denied)?

 

[Saltgrass]

It is not normal for a regular secondary hard drive to not be accessible by the OS. There could be several reasons, and some might be something has control, such as an anti-virus or earlier attempts to encrypt or backup the drive.

To help in seeing what might possibly be happing, it may be helpful for you to attach a snipping tool picture of your Disk Management window. You can attach using the Upload a File button.

 

[Matt William]

It is not normal for a regular secondary hard drive to not be accessible by the OS. There could be several reasons, and some might be something has control, such as an anti-virus or earlier attempts to encrypt or backup the drive.

To help in seeing what might possibly be happing, it may be helpful for you to attach a snipping tool picture of your Disk Management window. You can attach using the Upload a File button.

Here you go!

 

[Matt William]

I guess we need to understand what exactly is happening.

What happens when the don't? Do you get an error message (access denied)?

Yeah I get an error message saying I don't have privileges even though I do. I've attached screen caps

 

[Trouble]

Check and see who the "Owner" is of that particular file if it is not your user account explicitly then change it so that it is.

 

[Matt William]

Check and see who the "Owner" is of that particular file if it is not your user account explicitly then change it so that it is.

I just tried this by right clicking on the file and selecting take ownership. It worked!!! Thanks for that!

 

[Trouble]

Strange you had to do it individually.
Generally, using that same technique on the parent container (folder) will generally cascade ownership down to sub-folders and files.

 

[Saltgrass]

Since you appear to have two OS installs, can you boot to the other drive and what OS is it?

Were both systems set up using a Microsoft Account or was one using a local account?

 

[Matt William]

Strange you had to do it individually.
Generally, using that same technique on the parent container (folder) will generally cascade ownership down to sub-folders and files.

Yeah I actually ended up doing that. thanks again. Much much appreciated