WD External "access denied"

I have a Dell Studio 1558 with Windows 7 (64) and a WD external drive. Dell just replaced the hard drive on the laptop. I backed everything up just fine on the external. The Dell recognizes it and lists it as Elements (E NTFS as always, but now when I try to open it I get the message "E:\ is not accessible, access is denied". It still works fine on my HP laptop.

Device Mgr says Windows has determined the driver is up to date and the device is working properly.

No idea what to do next. Dell can't help and WD won't even try.

Thanks

 

You probably need to take ownershp of it- I am not the best with these ownership problems, but if you right click on the Western digital hard drive, and click on properties, I believe you will find in windows 7, that you can work your way to permissions, I will have to look at it again, and tick to allow ermission to all- I am in XP at the momement, so I will check shortly.
I don't like to send off site, but there is a little program that could help, downloadable from here- I have not seen it anywhere else.
http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/wind...ership-to-explorer-right-click-menu-in-vista/
I will look into Windows 7 , but I have to go offline and restsrt my computer to get to it.

 

O.K
I am in Windows 7. now---
Right click the Western Digital hard drive, click propertiesClick security
hard drive
Click edit
Tick all boxes to have full control
Click advanced tab to see it has been applied
You can then click owner tab and edit it if it is not yours to see
You can also click on the effective permissions tab, , if the name is not yours, you can put your name in and then click the select button
but I have not gone that far, myself, as I found the earlier clicks worked for what I wanted.
As I said, I am not that good at tthi sort of thing, and can only offer what I have tried myself.
Good luck

 

Doggone it, it just occurred to me I hadn't come back to thank you for your invaluable help. Your advice did the trick and all's well!

Thank you BIG TIME

Richard

 

Thans for coming back,and letting us know that it worked alright, as your reply will help others with the same problem, in solving the permissions problem