Stuck in a loophole; Locked myself out of C:\

5674 said:

Good news, i mannaged to fix the problem without having to do a repair install.

Remember those 4 user names that i mentioned earlier? I changed my C:/'s ownership to those specific names, the other two present would not let me grant them total access to the drive and would produce errors, luckily the system picked up the two deleted accounts up as legitimate users still on the system and then realised that it's functional to give those accounts ownership of the drive.

The names of the accounts werent avaliable by default, i had to find the names to grant access to, should've thought of that sooner, I thought that since i deleted them they woulden't still be recoverable.

Long story short no drastic measures were required and i luckily got out of what would otherwise be a total dead end.

Also reinstalling windows 7 woulden't be that much of a problem anyway, i have the OS itself stored on a 30gig partition, all my important files run on secondary drives.

Thanks guys

Trust me on this...you still need to do a reinstall before you continue using your system. What you've done is butchered the normal permissions and ownership on your drive, and you are going to have nothing but problems as you continue to use it.

iseeuu said:

5674 said:

Is there no other alternative?

I am grateful for you trying to help regardless.

I would think a "Repair Install" would get you back up and running without deleting everything and starting over.

Repair Install

Perhaps not a very good analogy, but sort of: think of buying food at a fast food joint. You only see the kid at the cash register, but behind the wall are all sorts of people doing different jobs so that the kid can put your food on a tray and pass it to you. What you have done is dismiss all the people behind the wall and now can't get your order filled?

Cheers!
Robert

A repair install won't change permissions....

Saltgrass said:

The solution suggested by richc46 is very easy and will not erase any data.

I am not in Win 7 right now, but how did you delete System? Did you delete it from the security tab for the C: partition and maybe that is why you cannot access it? Can you go back and add the System and fix it?

You say you can access the partition using a shortcut. It almost sounds like you mapped it.

If i search any file in the windows directory and then go to link location, it will take me to the file and thus in explorer i'm inside c:\windows\.

Also you're right i deleted System through the security tab.

Clean reformat 7 - and watch what you delete this time.

MacGyvr said:

Trust me on this...you still need to do a reinstall before you continue using your system. What you've done is butchered the normal permissions and ownership on your drive, and you are going to have nothing but problems as you continue to use it.

What problems would these be? Everything appears to be functional, i can run command console under admin rights and the few programs i have on this partition all work fine.

As far as the user directory goes, i see no problems.

surfasb said:

5674 said:

Good news, i mannaged to fix the problem without having to do a repair install.

Remember those 4 user names that i mentioned earlier? I changed my C:/'s ownership to those specific names, the other two present would not let me grant them total access to the drive and would produce errors, luckily the system picked up the two deleted accounts up as legitimate users still on the system and then realised that it's functional to give those accounts ownership of the drive.

The names of the accounts werent avaliable by default, i had to find the names to grant access to, should've thought of that sooner, I thought that since i deleted them they woulden't still be recoverable.

Long story short no drastic measures were required and i luckily got out of what would otherwise be a total dead end.

Also reinstalling windows 7 woulden't be that much of a problem anyway, i have the OS itself stored on a 30gig partition, all my important files run on secondary drives.

Thanks guys

I'm glad you didn't have to reformat. Reformatting sux any way you slice it.

Not if its necessary.

richc46 said:

Good Going, makes you feel good, doesn't it.

Last year i had to do a manual system restore using the live boot CD recovery console, that was rewarding, this was just tediously upsetting.

@5674 I have worked with Windows NT thru Windows 7 and what you have done to your system will lead to issues later. I have been there. I would do one of two things. 1) Back up all your data and wipe the drive and do a clean install. 2) Find another machine with the same version of Windows 7 and go through all folders and files on the entire system looking at the permissions and setting them the same. This is a long process but will save you a re-install. If it were me I would just do #1. It is so fast to install Windows now-a-days.