Windows 8 changed my rights on a Windows 7 HD, how to undo?

The motherboard on my HP computer failed and left me dead in the water. As my computer was 3 years old, I just went ahead and purchased another HP computer and installed my existing hard drive as a secondary.

No problems, except when I attempted to access the files off the old hard drive, Windows told me that it needed to change the user rights in order to access the files on the old hard drive. I clicked OK and it automatically modified the rights to the files and directories.

I did all this before I realized how bad Windows 8 sucks. And it sucks in sooo many ways I can't even begin to explain. Needless to say I wasn't happy with the new computer, which ONLY comes with Windows 8 by the way, that I swapped out with my wife's computer which was identical to the one that bit the dust. I put my old hard drive in her computer and everything boots up ok, after a few minutes of running check disk.

My problem is now, is that my computer tells me I do not have rights to any of the files on my old hard drive. I have checked the settings under rights, and I appear to still have admin rights to the C:/ drive, but can't access certain files or areas of the drive.

Firefox will not open at all and just tells me that I do not have access to the program. That was the main reason I wanted my old hard drive back because my Firefox has a security certificate that is needed to access a website for work. I believe I can delete the profiles.ini file within Firefox and hopefully pull that info back over. My real concern is how do I redo the rights to my C:/ drive that Windows 8 modified? I think that if I can redo my rights on the computer, that a lot of the other problems will go away. Or at least that's what I'm hoping.

I have thought about blowing my profile on the computer away and re-creating myself, but I'm affraid that it would just make matters worse. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Andres

It looks like your user name you are logged in doesnt have access rights... your would need to change that.

Go to security setting and see what access the Users have ( It should have Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, and Read ) checked by default

AndersC1 said:

The motherboard on my HP computer failed and left me dead in the water. As my computer was 3 years old, I just went ahead and purchased another HP computer and installed my existing hard drive as a secondary.

No problems, except when I attempted to access the files off the old hard drive, Windows told me that it needed to change the user rights in order to access the files on the old hard drive. I clicked OK and it automatically modified the rights to the files and directories.

I did all this before I realized how bad Windows 8 sucks. And it sucks in sooo many ways I can't even begin to explain. Needless to say I wasn't happy with the new computer, which ONLY comes with Windows 8 by the way, that I swapped out with my wife's computer which was identical to the one that bit the dust. I put my old hard drive in her computer and everything boots up ok, after a few minutes of running check disk.

My problem is now, is that my computer tells me I do not have rights to any of the files on my old hard drive. I have checked the settings under rights, and I appear to still have admin rights to the C:/ drive, but can't access certain files or areas of the drive.

Firefox will not open at all and just tells me that I do not have access to the program. That was the main reason I wanted my old hard drive back because my Firefox has a security certificate that is needed to access a website for work. I believe I can delete the profiles.ini file within Firefox and hopefully pull that info back over. My real concern is how do I redo the rights to my C:/ drive that Windows 8 modified? I think that if I can redo my rights on the computer, that a lot of the other problems will go away. Or at least that's what I'm hoping.

I have thought about blowing my profile on the computer away and re-creating myself, but I'm affraid that it would just make matters worse. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance

Merge this registry file. You can then right click on directories and 'take ownership', which adds user rights to all files and sub directories.

Careful what you click on. It should be safe to use this on the entire 'users' folder, which is likely what windows 8 modified. Ideally you would log into each account on the computer and use this separately on each 'user/account-name' folder.

Add "Take Ownership" to Explorer Right-Click Menu in Win 7 or Vista

centaur78 said:

Andres

It looks like your user name you are logged in doesnt have access rights... your would need to change that.

Go to security setting and see what access the Users have ( It should have Read & Execute, List Folder Contents, and Read ) checked by default

I have check the user rights from the C:/ drive on down, and I the settings show that I have full access to the files and directories.

I think the problem is with the conversion it did to Windows 8 security. I just need a way to revert what Windows 8 did to the user rights.