Denied external drive permission after factory reset

[writhziden]

Stacman:

Start an http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/783-elevated-command-prompt.html and type:

J:
dir /a​

What files are listed? Anything with the .lnk is a shortcut and can be ignored. Are your actual files and folders shown using the above command?

 

[alphanumeric]

It was -10 Celsius when I walked the dog this morning around 8AM. The sun was out and we were sheltered in the woods so it wasn't that bad actually. It's just creeping up to 0 c now at a little after 3PM. I don't know whats going on with your system? I've done countless re-installs and aside the the one glitch I mentioned in this thread I have never had any problems accessing files on external drives or secondary partitions.

 

[writhziden]

I don't know whats going on with your system? I've done countless re-installs and aside the the one glitch I mentioned in this thread I have never had any problems accessing files on external drives or secondary partitions.

There was a user on here a couple weeks ago (see http://www.sevenforums.com/hardware...shows-external-drive-empty-while-its-not.html) with nearly the same problem, but shortcuts were not showing up. The drive looked blank. Turned out, somehow the +h and +s attributes were set to all files and folders. Running the command

dir /a​

shows all files with all attributes. If they show, then the command

attrib /s /d -h -s *​

will reveal all files again. Permissions can then be set if necessary.


Also, post #27 is where the OP made a mistake and why the system is no longer functioning. Taking ownership of the whole system drive causes massive problems in Windows. The command should have been conducted on the G: drive. The instructions in post #20 are correct, but there is a typo in the actual command where C replaces G.

Lyrical MC, were you able to resolve this? Perhaps by a system restore? Factory recovery?

 

[Stacman]

That's a little too frigid alphanumeric. Unless of course, you're inside with no reason to go out. I would like a little cool whether for a change here in San Diego. We're mired in a 70's to 80's stretch for the past 3 weeks.

As I hinted, I regularly do a clean reinstall on my primary partition to keep it clean, and running its best, and I've never had this problem. So things like this literally cause me to lose sleep when I can't figure it out, and there's no apparent logical reason for it.

writhziden, thanks for the tip. I'll take a look when I get home. My laptop at the office doesn't have the same problem. I'm running XP on it.

 

[Stacman]

writhziden, I read the link you provided above about the attributes changing. Hopefully, it'll be as simple as that. Do you recommend using the "attrib /s /d -h -s *" command from your post, or the one used in Post #20?

 

[writhziden]

Use the one from my post. Then use the permissions from post 20, but use drive J: instead of C: to change the permissions.

cacls J:\ /t /g [username]:f​

where you will have to fill in your [username] (without the brackets)
For me, the commands would be:

J:
attrib /s /d -h -s *
cacls J:\ /t /g Mike:f
​

 

[Stacman]

I ran dir /a on my flash drive, which had the same issues, and I ran the attributes command, but not the cacls command because the drive was formatted using FAT32 instead of NTFS (I don't remember why I did that). This time the directories showed up, as well as the shortcuts. I deleted the shortcuts and it looks normal. I'll still have to remove everything and reformat to NTFS so I can change permissions. Hopefully the same will work on the big drives, and I'll make a poster to hang over my desk with these commands.

Thanks for the help, and I'll let you know later on if this worked for the others.

 

[writhziden]

You can convert FAT32 to NTFS without formatting or losing data. http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/11106-convert-fat-fat32-volume-ntfs.html

 

[Stacman]

Thanks, I knew of the one-way conversion, but the flash drive is only 16 GB, so I thought a reformat was in order anyway. I'm kinda curious if it'll come back with shortcuts, or the real deal.

 

[writhziden]

If your external drives continue to come back with shortcuts, I would suspect malware at work here. Let us know if this is the case so we can help you make sure the system is secure.

 

[Stacman]

The folders came back, but with padlocks on them, no shortcuts.

 

[writhziden]

The folders came back, but with padlocks on them, no shortcuts.

Padlocks mean the permissions are not properly set. Make sure you have Users set to be able to at least read the contents within the security tab.

 

[alphanumeric]

That's a little too frigid alphanumeric. Unless of course, you're inside with no reason to go out. I would like a little cool whether for a change here in San Diego. We're mired in a 70's to 80's stretch for the past 3 weeks.

It's nippy but you learn to dress for it. lol, my wife is constantly knitting wool socks, mittens, scarves and hats for our grand kids etc.

 

[Stacman]

I gave full control to all, and still the same...

 

[writhziden]

Does it look like: ?

 

[Stacman]

I didn't have evveryone in there, but I added it and now the shortcuts are back. Too weird.

 

[writhziden]

I didn't have evveryone in there, but I added it and now the shortcuts are back. Too weird.

Where do the shortcuts link to? This definitely sounds like a malware problem if adding Everyone allows something access to hide things and add shortcuts.

 

[Stacman]

The shortcuts link directly to cmd.exe in Windows>System32..

 

[writhziden]

Scan your drive for malware using the free version (do not start the trial) of Malwarebytes : Free anti-malware, anti-virus and spyware removal download.

Also, what antivirus do you have installed?

Scratch that, run a full scan with Malwarebytes; include both the external drive and all other drives.

Start a new thread in the System Security forum and describe what is taking place on your external drive.

 

[Stacman]

I'm running a quick scan now to see what shows up. If nothing significant I'll run a full scan. I'll switch to a full scan.