New
#1
Cannot access encrypted files even though I never encrypted them
I have a 1TB external USB drive (M: for my entire music collection (all legitimately purchased!)
It has always been connected to my desktop. Up until a few weeks ago, my desktop was Win7 32bit Ultimate. A few weeks ago my system died so I got a new one and I installed Win7 64bit Ultimate this time, fresh install, fresh everything. And everything works perfectly, except...
I can access (and play) the majority of files and folders on this external USB drive; however, there are probably 50 folders with a couple thousand files that appear GREEN IN WINDOWS EXPLORER, and when I look at their security properties, they have checked "Encrypt contents to secure data". If I try to remove this checkbox and apply, I get "Access Denied" error messages for each file in the folder. I stumbled onto this problem when I was trying to play some of these files and also fix some ID3 tags, and alas, I did not have the ability to play them nor update their tags.
--I never used Bitlocker on my old Win32 system
--I never explicitly applied encryption or any certificate to any subset of files on my old Win32 system
I have followed other instructions in the forum to TAKE OWNERSHIP, and have that registry mod enabled so I can right click any of these GREEN FILES and take ownership; however, I still cannot play or edit these files: I still see "Access Denied" if I clear the "Encrypt contents" check box.
This is EXTREMELY FRUSTRATING as you can probably imagine.
Again, this is just a data drive, no OS ever lived on it, and I never would arbitrarily set encryption for these files and folders.
What is the solution? I would even accept a painful workaround.