Vista jacked up my files

[HeSaveDave]

Truth be told someone in my household probably did it but now its frustratingly painful to fix.

I have a 500gb external hard drive. I keep all my music, vids, pics, documents, etc on it. Whenever I try to view one of the files it says I don't have permission. I'll go to the main folder give "everyone" full access through security but it WILL NOT apply to each file in the folder. It is making me go to each individual file and share the file with everyone. We're talking thousands of files here. Tens of thousands. I cannot go to each one and give access. I've gone to the top folder and had it give full access to "everyone" and select the option to apply it to all files inside that folder but it won't It just unlocks it for the folder to let me get in and view the files. The files themselves stay private and unviewable.

Please help me! I don't want to have to rebuy all my music and lose all my family photos!

 

[HeSaveDave]

I forgot to mention this happened only after I switched to Vista from XP.

 

[mechBgon]

They're not encrypted with EFS, I hope. Right-click > Properties > Advanced... button and make sure they're not encrypted.

Once that's been checked, take ownership of the stuff (you could do this at the root of the drive if you like). Did that help?

 

[HeSaveDave]

Ok theyre not encrypted.

I take ownership of a folder and it lets me. The problem is that it doesn't pass on my ownership to the files inside the folder unless I configure each individual file to allow me to view them.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: HeSaveDave
Ok theyre not encrypted.

I take ownership of a folder and it lets me. The problem is that it doesn't pass on my ownership to the files inside the folder unless I configure each individual file to allow me to view them.

Ok, and are you doing step 5 during the ownership takeover (and note that ownership isn't the same as security) : "If you want that person to be the owner of files and subfolders in this folder, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box :camera:."

 

[HeSaveDave]

I'm sorry I guess I was doing the security thing. How do I start to take over ownership of say my Media folder?

 

[mechBgon]

You were on the right track. On the Security tab, there's the Advanced button that opens a second panel. complete instructions on this page, click on I installed a new version of Windows, and now I can't open a folder.

Hopefully that was the issue. Any good?

 

[HeSaveDave]

Still no luck. Its looking like I'll have to delete and start all my files again from scratch. What a bummer. Do you think this is a problem with vista? I could switch back to XP and try to regain access to my files?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: HeSaveDave
Still no luck. Its looking like I'll have to delete and start all my files again from scratch. What a bummer. Do you think this is a problem with vista? I could switch back to XP and try to regain access to my files?

I think it's an NTFS file-system issue, which probably means it's independent of Vista or XP per se. A new install of WinXP would just yank the rug out from under it yet again. So let's go over things.

1) you've now taken Ownership of the contents of the drive, correct? Question: did the Ownership change propogate to all the subfolders and files?

2) if so, then after that, who has permissions on a given subfolder or file now? To find out, look at the Effective Permissions tab which is on the same panel as the Owner tab. You want to give your Users group the necessary permissions, which can be done where you started from, at the Security tab.


Since I can't be there to see what's happening, please be explicit about exactly what actions you take and what the results are.

 

[HeSaveDave]

I don't really know what to do or what I'm doing. I'm reinstalling XP, deleting all my files and restarting my file collection. I'm pissed.

 

[Jeff7181]

One method I've found effective for stripping all file permissions and whatnot is backing up files, then restoring them and selecting the option to NOT preserve permissions.

I assume if it was absolutely necessary you could also write a script to take ownership and set permissions on all the files so you didn't have to do each one manually.

*EDIT* I wouldn't give up just yet. Have you tried EVERY method mech suggested? There's really no reason you should have to scrap everything and start over unless the files were encrypted and you didn't back up the encryption key.

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: Jeff7181
I assume if it was absolutely necessary you could also write a script to take ownership and set permissions on all the files so you didn't have to do each one manually.

That's where we're going next if the GUI approach doesn't seem to be working The relevant commands, let's say it's drive letter M:... I think it would be

takeown /f M:\ /r /d y to take ownership

icacls M:\ /grant users:F /t to grant the Users group a Full Control permission level

(these would be run by going to Start > All Programs > Accessories, right-clicking Command Prompt, and choosing Run As Administrator)

Credits: http://forums.anandtech.com/me...id=34&threadid=2136503

 

[Skeeedunt]

Originally posted by: HeSaveDave
I don't really know what to do or what I'm doing. I'm reinstalling XP, deleting all my files and restarting my file collection. I'm pissed.

What mech said sounds like it will do the trick.

Have you been checking the "Replace all existing inheritable permissions on all descendants with inheritable permissions from this object" box? (Under Security->Advanced->Edit)

 

[RebateMonger]

Originally posted by: HeSaveDave
I don't really know what to do or what I'm doing. I'm reinstalling XP, deleting all my files and restarting my file collection. I'm pissed.

Uh...that's entirely unnecessary. Oh well....

 

[Jeff7181]

Originally posted by: RebateMonger

Originally posted by: HeSaveDave
I don't really know what to do or what I'm doing. I'm reinstalling XP, deleting all my files and restarting my file collection. I'm pissed.

Uh...that's entirely unnecessary. Oh well....

And unfortunately, all he will probably remember is the thread title. "Vista destroyed all my files and I had to reinstall XP and lost all my photos and documents."

 

[random betrayal]

For what it is worth my vista 64 bit just randomly write protects different drives. This after having it installed for over 3 months it started doing this. If I leave it alone after a reboot it always goes back to normal. I have no idea why it does this I have tried many of the above suggestions previously and it never removes the read only access. I just live with it at this point as I normally power down anyway, but it is an annoyance.

 

[ChronoReverse]

You shouldn't have to live with that. If you can narrow down the triggers a bit, you should submit a bug report. It certainly doesn't do something like that on the Vista machines I've used so there's a corner case here.

 

[HeSaveDave]

Well I took ownership of the drive using my account David (Administrator), when I clicked "apply to subfolders" it went through the motions but the checkbox became unchecked when it had finished. I still have no power to view or move files. My permissions are set to let everyone have full control. But when I try to move a file or view a pic it says "You need permission to perform this action". Nothing is encrypted, I never did that and I checked to make sure. Now what?

 

[mechBgon]

Originally posted by: HeSaveDave
Well I took ownership of the drive using my account David (Administrator), when I clicked "apply to subfolders" it went through the motions but the checkbox became unchecked when it had finished. I still have no power to view or move files. My permissions are set to let everyone have full control. But when I try to move a file or view a pic it says I don't have permission. Nothing is encrypted, I never did that and I checked to make sure. Now what?

Are you now on WinXP, or still on Vista, before we go further?

 

[HeSaveDave]

Vista still, I didn't want to give up on all my precious files. That would make me very sad.

 

[HeSaveDave]

I don't know if this helps but I guess right before this problem came up my son was trying to "unshare" some of these files with our media center extender (360). So that only the ones he wanted would show up on the 360. I guess it applied some changes to the files.

 

[mechBgon]

You might try the command-line method I mentioned about 10 posts ago. If you'd rather go at it from the GUI, then right-click a folder in the drive, or select a whole batch of them at once, and try this:

1) right-click > Properties > Security tab. Been here before.

2) click the Advanced button to open Advanced Security Settings. Stay on the Permissions tab.

3) on Advanced Security Settings > Permissions, put a checkmark in "Replace all existing inheritable permissions on all descendants with inheritable permissions from this object."

4) now click on your Users group in the Permission entries window and click Edit... below that. Give Users a full-control clearance. You can do likewise with your Administrators group if you want.

5) Now apply that change and have a snack while it plows through and changes the permissions Any good?

 

[HeSaveDave]

That worked. You just saved my butt, dude. Who do I make the check out to? lol God bless you. I love you!

 

[HeSaveDave]

By the way, the scripture in your sig is my first favorite verse after I laid down my life. Along with ....Therefore, if anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; the old has gone, the new has come!

 

[mechBgon]