External Hard Drive Files Locked As Read-Only

[CeeGee]

Hi

I have recently bought a new laptop running Windows 7. I have an external hard drive which I used to use on an old laptop which ran Windows XP. When I plug the USB external hard drive into my new laptop running Windows 7, I can only open files as read only.

Why is the external hard drive locked? I only have one user account set up which is an administrator account.

Any ideas for solving this one?

Regards

CeeGee

 

[not so gray matter]

It's likely locked because your old machine had set the permissions as read only.

You'll need to take ownership of the drive and/or change the permissions.

 

[Product FRED]

Here's how to add "Take Ownership" to the right-click menu: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1911-take-ownership-shortcut.html

 

[Casca]

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\StorageDevicePolicies\WriteProtect

If this value exists AND is set to 1, the usb connected drive would present as read-only.

 

[CeeGee]

Thanks for the replies.

notsograymatter - not clear what you are suggesting here, can you expand?
Product FRED - not clear how this sorts out the thousands of files I have on the drive?
Casca - the registry key does not exist on my machine?

Would really appreciate some further help.

I still have my old laptop. Can I remove the read only status using the old laptop in some way?

Regards

CeeGee

 

[Product FRED]

I was adding to notsograymatter's suggestion of taking ownership of the files. Click the link I provided to go to the tutorial and hit "Download" to download a .reg file. Double-click it and hit "Yes" to add a "Take Ownership" command to the right-click menu. When you take ownership of a file, you gain all rights to it. So just select the file/folders you want to take ownership of, right click, and click "Take Ownership".

- Fred

 

[captfaiz]

Post subject: Can't change read only on external hard drive
I have all my data on an external hard drive and was working with it from my old XP-system without a problem.
In Windows 8 or 10 all files are suddenly read only, and allthough I unclicked it in my administrator account and applied the
changes, once it is done the files are still read only!

I have 'solved' it in the follow way:

Folder (R/C)
Properties (L/C)
Security (L/C)
Edit (L/C)
Creator Owner (L/C)
Allow: Full control (L/C)
Account Unknown (s...)
User Allow: Full control (L/C)
Apply (L/C)
(Wait, if needed)

Folder (R/C)
Properties (L/C)
OK (L/C)
General (L/C)
Read only (L/C)
Apply (L/C)
OK (L/C)
(Wait, if needed)
OK (L/C)