Tempered with Windows security options - folders unaccessible

Hey guys, I'm new to these forums, and I really like how they look like, and how they're active, and everything. :)
After searching for my answer for several hours, I decided to register here and post you my problem. I hope I'll stick around on the forum, and become a regular member. Here goes:

So, yesterday, I wanted to limit off my moms account from accessing my hard drives. And all that went fine, but low and behold, I had to change the Users Permissions on my E: drive (I have a few partitions).

So, first off, I changed the permissions of Users to Denied. After that, I (with my administrator account) couldn't access the E: drive at all. So, I went to the security options again, and then I changed the Users permissions to default again (Read and Execute, List Folder Contents and Read). And that worked, but it only regained me access to half of my disk. I can access it now, and I can access some files, but some files are completely invisible. They do show up when I try to change the permissions again, just telling me that the access on the file is denied. So, they're there, but I can't seem to get to them.

Anyway, I tried accessing them from Windows 8 Developer Preview, and the folder Archives (that's the folder I was using to see if I can unlock the files from it, after it, I could go on to other folders) said that it was empty. The same as on Windows 7. Then I took my Ubuntu LiveCD and tried accessing the folder from there, and Ubuntu (from the LiveCD) also said that the directory is empty.

I really hope someone can help with this issue, since losing those files permanently isn't really a solution for me.

Anyway, thanks in advance. I hope someone can help me. Also, one question. Will uninstalling Windows 7 completely remove the permission setting from all those files and folders?

Cheers!

logicearth said:

Acolyte192 said:

Anyway, thanks in advance. I hope someone can help me. Also, one question. Will uninstalling Windows 7 completely remove the permission setting from all those files and folders?

Cheers!

No! NTFS permissions are stored on the file system along with the file they are not a setting in Windows but of the file itself. The problem, you applied DENY permissions which override ALLOW permissions on a group all users are part of, the USERS group. Even tho the ADMINISTRATORS group is given ALLOW those DENY permissions set to USERS takes precedence thus locking yourself out.

You might try from an administrative command prompt: (Not tested.)

Code:

icacls E:\* /remove:d users /T /C /L

Hey, first of all - thank you for your time and help. I appreciate it. :)

Second, it didn't work. It processed all the files which I'm already allowed access to, and the files that I don't have access to, well, the command prompt didn't get access to either.

Sorry. :/

Anyone? :/