Windows 7: I think I screwed up ...folder/drive inaccessible

Hello all



I'm just hoping that what I did is recoverable. I had Win 7 on my computer until a few hours earlier with 2 users accounts on it. My account was admin and the other user account. My USB hard drive which is always connected was assigned permissions to my user account to prevent the other user from accessing the data. All fine until I decided to install Windows 8. I backed up all my important stuff I had in my user account on C: to my USB hard drive.

I formatted my main partition and installed Win 8 RP and noticed that my usb hard drive now shows up as NTFS and says inaccessible!!! I didn't backup any permissions and enabling folder permissions is a first to me as I never had more than one user on my computer. The data in it is invaluable and I need my data back. Is there anything I can do to recover the data myself?

Praying to the lord

WG

Greetings wildgoat,

Do you have access to another Windows 7 PC that you can plug the hard drive in and see what it might say?

Sorted out!!! Wooohoooo

Used this guide - Take Ownership of Files and Folders - Windows 7

Glad you got it working--what did you do to fix it? For the sake of others that may encounter your situation. Thanks

Used this guide : Take Ownership of Files and Folders - Windows 7

Have another issue to take care of. Some of the files on the root of the USB drive now come up with an error when opened. Error is "Excel cannot access xxxx file. The document may be read-only or encrypted". Any tips?

Well done on the fix. The best and the must to work one !

Were the files originally excel files ? Take ownership of those too.

Now, go to control panel > Folder Options > View tab, and uncheck this option, and see what is the extension name for those files.


If those files are originally excel files, change the extension name to .xls (excel 97-2003 document) or .xlsx (above).

It should work.