Lost all permissions to hard drive in windows 10 - Super User 15/05/24, 11:57 AM

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Lost all permissions to hard drive in windows 10
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I had to share my laptop with someone, so I tried to change the access permissions of
my storage drive, while windows is on my SSD. But somehowContinue
I lost all permissions to my
0 drive.

After trying all icacls techniques, I did a reset and a fresh install, and it still doesn't solve
the problem.

Manage ThisPC

er Vie AdvancedSecuritySettingsforLocalDisk(E:)

This
Name: E:

Owner: Unabletodisplaycurrentowner.Change

Permissions Auditing EffectiveAccess

Youdonothavepermissiontoviewthisobject'ssecurityproperties,evenasanadministrativeuser.
Totrytakingownershipoftheobject,whichincludespermissiontoviewitsproperties,clickChangeabove.

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windows-10 hard-drive permissions

https://superuser.com/questions/1791951/lost-all-permissions-to-hard-drive-in-windows-10 Page 1 of 3
Lost all permissions to hard drive in windows 10 - Super User 15/05/24, 11:57 AM

Share Improve this question edited Jun 27, 2023 at 12:24 asked Jun 27, 2023 at 12:00
Follow Yisroel Tech Qasim Ali Khan
11k 3 27 41 1

1 what happens when you "click change above" as you are prompted? – Jaromanda X Jun 27,
2023 at 12:02

Did you try to change the owner to yourself from the screen in your image? What happened?
– harrymc Jun 27, 2023 at 12:07

As an Administrator change the owner of the drive. By default all users have full permission on
non-system drives – Ramhound Jun 27, 2023 at 12:08

While it's easy to write that you tried "all icacls techniques" it would better if you can include
what you tried and what the resulting error/messege was. – Yisroel Tech Jun 27, 2023 at 12:38

2 Answers Sorted by: Highest score (default)

The reason reset and fresh install (of your OS on another drive) didn't help is because
those aren't OS permissions, they are file system NTFS permissions which are stored as
2 part of the file system on the drive itself.

To reset the NTFS permissions for everything on the drive (and this would've worked
regardless if your OS had been reset or not), Open Commend Prompt as Administrator
and first take ownership on the files/drive with the TAKEOWN command:

TAKEOWN /F E:\ /R /D Y

Once you have ownership, then you can reset the permissions using icacls :

icacls "E:\" /reset /T /Q /C

Share Improve this answer edited Jun 27, 2023 at 13:15 answered Jun 27, 2023 at 12:35
Follow Yisroel Tech
11k 3 27 41

1 Small addition to this already good answer: this solution would even have worked without
reinstalling windows. – LPChip Jun 27, 2023 at 13:08

1 Indeed, I implied this with my opening paragraph, but I'll add it in explicitly. – Yisroel Tech Jun
27, 2023 at 13:14

https://superuser.com/questions/1791951/lost-all-permissions-to-hard-drive-in-windows-10 Page 2 of 3
Lost all permissions to hard drive in windows 10 - Super User 15/05/24, 11:57 AM

Thank you. I had this issue today. TAKEOWN worked

icacls did not.

-1
C:\Users\Administrator>icacls "G:" /reset /T /Q /C

G:" /reset /T /Q /C: The filename, directory name, or volume label syntax is incorrect.
Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files

How important is this step?

Update - Don't know why the thumbs down but while I can now access the directories I
cannot do anything with the files.

Any advice would be appreciated

Share Improve this answer edited 7 mins ago answered 17 mins ago
Follow Aaron Dunn
1 1

New contributor

https://superuser.com/questions/1791951/lost-all-permissions-to-hard-drive-in-windows-10 Page 3 of 3