Windows 7: External Hardrive and Permissions

I am having a few issues with my external hard drive and being able to access the files on there. A wee while ago somehow I accidentally removed all the permissions from the external and I was unable to access any of the files. For the life of me I have no idea how to re-enable those permissions. Is someone able to please give me a walk through on how to do it?



Oh I forgot to add some of the folders have a little padlock in the folder icon, what does that mean?

Matt,
Welcome to SevenForums.

First Take Ownership.

Then as owner you can change permissions.

Now let's see if I can find the tutorials. I always do this manual way, but most prefer the ways in the tutorials.

Take Ownership Shortcut - Windows 7 Forums

And here iis a video to help you:
Accessing Local and Network Resources in Windows 7

Thanks, that seems to have done the trick! Cheers.

Edit: Maybe not I am still getting the "You don't currently have permission to access this folder" dialog box when I try to access any folders.

That video will show you how to change permissions after taking ownership.

The screencasts page is a nice resource. Thanks for the link!

James

That sort of helped but I think my problem is the Inherited From Permissions. I think I need to have the permissions inherited from C: but I dont know how to apply that. All the users are set up for permissions and I am still getting the same dialog box as before.

review the video

Is the external HDD formatted in NTFS or FAT32?

NTFS. I am going to watch that video again, there must have been something I missed.

Ok I do everything that is instructed in the video and I still get the same message popping up. What the hell is going on? It is doing my head in.