Urgent Help Required changing access permissions for drives

Hythers

Running before i could walk i have managed to deny access to one of my internal hard drives to all users including myself as the administrator, yeah i know, idiot.
Can anybody tell me how to regain access rights please.
forgot to mention, using windows xp home edition

bigglesinc

What did you use to deny access?

Browntoa

tried system restore to roll it back ?

Hythers

it was a trial version of file security manager, and evenby using it i still cannot regain, access.

system restore did not work

gizmoleeds

I have no experience of file security manager.

However, if this uses NTFS encryption then you could try logging on to the administrator log-on and right click on the drive, Security, and then see if it has "take ownership" anywhere. I know from experience that on XP pro if a drive is secured it will say access denied even to administrators until they do this.

What is the message when you try to access it?

gizmoleeds

gizmoleeds wrote:

However, if this uses NTFS encryption....

A quick google suggests that this is the case. Do you still have file security manager installed?

One thing I would point out is that all is not lost - this is a reversible problem, and your files can and will be accessible once again, it just may take a little time :cool:

Hythers

thanks for your replies gizmoleeds, unfortunately the security and sharing option is not shown when right clicking on this particular drive, also as it is xp home edition i dont think there is a seperate administrator logon.
I still have file security manager installed but whatever i do i get access denied to the drive.

gizmoleeds

Has file security manager's trial period expired?

If not then there is an option somewhere in there to "take ownership" of a drive. This is what you need to do.

Also, is the logon you are on definitely an administrator log-on? (start > control panel > user accounts to find out)

gizmoleeds

Does file security manager (I'm gonna call this FSM from now on ) have a help file? If so then look in there for details of how to "take ownership".

Chippy_Minton

See How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP, but note "If you are running Microsoft Windows XP Home Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an account that has Administrative rights to have access to the Security tab."

gizmoleeds

Thanks Chippy_Minton - I didn't know you could get access to the security tab that way.

I've been using XP Pro for years and have only just got a laptop with XP Home - it is taking a bit of time to get used to all the little things which are missing!