Access Conrol/Security Tab problems

Lets start by saying I currently want my other half dead. Really painfully dead.

My MereMale decided to play with the access control/Security tabs (Windows 7) within my neatly partitioned and organised drives. He says it was to stop the kids from stuffing things up, oh the irony. Anyways he said he changed the settings to prevent other users from accessing certain partitions, and then he supposedly set my user to full access.

I had hoped he could be more specific, but his 3 firing brain cells were possibly scared stupid with the death glare I was giving him at the time. All he could remember doing was right clicking on the Drive from My Computer, clicking the security tab and screwing it up.

Today when I logged in and opened up My Computer, all my lovely partitions are no longer accessable. Even the names are no longer visible to me or any other User, all I get is G: or H: I cant even see how much space is on each drive now, even opening Properties shows no bytes used.

I am really starting to freak out as I cant even see the security tab within the drive proprties to change the settings back. I am guessing that Windows just thinks I dont have permission, and I am really hopeful that there is a simple solution. Please help before I get the shovel and dig a very large hole to hide the body and expain to my clients that 6 months work has been wiped from my external hard drive.

Please help...... Im too soft for prison.....

 

try system restore...

 

But your PC problem sounds pretty difficult. How many User Accounts are installed, is there still the original Administrator account? If there is, you may be able to use that to change the permissions back.

Can you find out what method he used to change them originally, Windows Explorer, Group Policy, 3rd party tools ... ?

 

Thanks Satrow, I like the song and the sentiment

I have 2 users, and the Admin acct is activated but cant seem to use it to change the permissions on the drive in question. The Security tab in Properties isnt there to change it.

I sat my walking dead man down last night and had him show me exactly what he did. So step by step here is what he did...

Right clicked the drive from My Computer, clicked properties, the the security tab.

Then he clicked Advanced and then the Change Permissions button.

The he clicked the Add button.

He clicked advanced then Object Types, where he selected Users, then each user (one at a a time)

Then back at the Change Permissions screen, he selected each User (Mine and the Kids) and used the Edit function to change the
permissions. He denied the other user access, and supposedly Allowed mine everything.
Apparently it took a while for each chage to work.

This is all he remembers doing.

From then neither of our users, nor Administration can see the drives name, space used and properties is now useless without
even the Security tab being shown now....

 

I tried both system restore, and creating a new Admin user. Neither helped.
No change in the new admin user, still cant access the security permissions..

Starting to panic......

 

You could try following the instructions in the first reply here. It's not going to be easy, whichever route you take. It's for W7/Server 2008 but I think it's very similar for earlier versions.

EDIT: Do you have any shortcuts to your 'missing' files/folders/drives? Try them, if you do, limited access may still be available that way.

 

when you boot the computer does the login screen come up...try ctrl + alt + delete to gain access to the admin account...

 

OK,

Satrow, I followed the link, and tried both the takeown and icacls options, both options seem to work great for
folders and individual files, but dont seem to apply to my H: drive, not sure if there is another option
that will work for a partion, as opposed to a folder or file. Any shortcuts I had to any files within
my H: are dead, they all come up with access denied and even the icons are no longer the same. :-(

TimW, will doing a clean install do anything about the permissions? Will doing a fresh install kill
off any hope i have of getting into this drive?? Im a bit scared of this option...

Kench, I have the Administrator acct active already in the log on screen, and access is still denied.

I found a couple of reg edits that add the Take Ownership option to the right-click menu, these work
when a folder or file needs it, but neither work on any drive....

I appreciate your help so far everyone, its the only reason Im not yet widowed....

 

Update:

I was once told if I ever had a computer problem to ask an 11 year old. I thought it was a funny assessment of the younger generation, I never thought it would have been literal advice.

I asked an 11 year old in jest what should I do next, her advice was simple, log into Administration via safe mode and adjust the security tab there.... Lo and behold, the 11 year old solved it.

If any poor sod has this same problem, just activate your Administration account, then log into it from safe mode, and you can get right back into the security tab to fix things.

Thanks again everyone :-D

 

lol...from the mouth of babes eh

 

One of my favourite sayings is "If you want to know anything, ask a teenager", maybe I should modify it in light of this?

Second Honeymoon upcoming, or merely a temporary stay of execution?