Unable to display current owner

[southwest]

Windows 7 Ultimate x64, custom built system
Two physical drives, C:\ and D:\, formatted NTFS

Computer crashed awhile back as a result of a power outage. When it came back up, everything seemed fine except that I can no longer access the root of D:\. In Windows Explorer, I can type in a path to a folder in the root of D:\, such as "D:\Photos", but if I try to display the root of D:\ I get "Access Denied."

In Windows Explorer, D:\ is displayed with no 'size / free' information. Any attempt to access D:\, whether with Windows Explorer or Command Line or via Disk Management always results in "Access Denied."

Going to Properties of D:\, Security tab, I see the message, "You do not have permission to view or edit this object's permission settings." The only button available there is "Advanced", and clicking it brings me to the Permissions, Auditing, Owner, and Effective Permissions tabs. Each of those tabs simply says "You do not have permission to view or edit this object's permission settings", except for the Owner tab which says "Unable to display current owner."

I have tried the Registry file and tutorials at the beginning of this thread, I have tried takeown and icacls commands from an Administrator-level command prompt, and I have tried another Registry mod called "Grant Admin Full Control". Nothing has worked so far.

I have enabled the hidden Administrator account and logged into it and I have created a brand new administrator-level user account and tried from there. Neither approach was successful, always giving me the messages described above.

My data isn't exactly in danger, to the extent that I can remember the folder names, but I'd really like to be able to access this drive normally again. Does this sound like an ownership problem, a permissions problem, a corruption problem, or what?

 

[nilank]

Run chkdsk on D:

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/433-disk-check.html

 

[southwest]

I actually can't run chkdisk. Attempting to do so from the drive's properties page, Tools tab, gives the error "The disk check can't be performed because Windows can't access the disk." Attempting to do so from the command line gives the error "Access Denied."

Again, it's only the root of the drive that I can't access. I can access all of the folders and their subfolders, at least all of the ones I've tried so far.

Thanks.

 

[nilank]

Oh that's easy. After it says it can't check the disk, it'll ask you if you want to schedule a disk check, just click yes and restart your system.

 

[Britton30]

It may be corruption due to power outage. Try this and see if it will run:

This may help, run the steps outlined in this tutorial, Option Two, and reboot the system:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/1538-sfc-scannow-command-system-file-checker.html#post14392
If that doesn't correct the issue, run it two or more times with a reboot between.
You may get this result:

Windows Resource Protection found corrupt files and successfully repaired
them. Details are included in the CBS.Log windir\Logs\CBS\CBS.log. For
example C:\Windows\Logs\CBS\CBS.log
The system file repair changes will take effect after the next reboot.

Or a message that no integrity violations were found.
Or that Windows Resource Protection found errors it cannot repair, if so rerun the steps above.

 

[southwest]

Nilank,
When I get the error "The disk check can't be performed because Windows can't access the disk." I'm only given an "OK" button, which closes the error message and puts me back at the Tools tab of Disk Properties. There's no offer to schedule a disk check.

Britton30,
I'll give SFC a try later today and report back. Thanks.

 

[nilank]

Nilank,
When I get the error "The disk check can't be performed because Windows can't access the disk." I'm only given an "OK" button, which closes the error message and puts me back at the Tools tab of Disk Properties. There's no offer to schedule a disk check.

Britton30,
I'll give SFC a try later today and report back. Thanks.

OK, open up command prompt and type this out:

fsutil dirty set D:

Restart.

Also, have you tried right clicking on drive D and clicking 'open' or tried to access it via navigation pane on left? There might be some autorun stuff located at D:\ that is preventing you from accessing it.

Has happened to me a lot of times in the early days of Windows 7.

 

[southwest]

Nilank,
Typing the fsutil command resulted in "Error: Access is denied."

Yes, I've tried right clicking and selecting Open (gives "Access is denied.") and navigating to it in the left pane of Win Explorer (same error).

Thanks.

 

[southwest]

Britton30,

sfc /scannow gave the response "Windows Resource Protection did not find any integrity violations."
I ran it twice, rebooting in between.

This really looks (to me) like a permissions issue, as if there's a Deny permission set on D:\. If so, it's fortunate that the subfolders didn't inherit it since I'm able to access them.

 

[nilank]

Run command prompt as admin and try running the command again. Really seems something's wrong with permissions on D.

 

[Layback Bear]

This might help and might not, but it cost nothing.
Go back to restore point before the power outage.

Just go to Start Orb and type Restore and you will see the option.

 

[southwest]

1. I was already running from an elevated command prompt, so that's not it.

2. I had already tried going back to each of my previous restore points, with no change to this issue.

Thanks.

 

[nilank]

Good morning.

Let's try something with permissions:

1. Right click your D drive > Click "Properties" > Click the "Security" tab (if you can't find the security tab, go to disk management, right click on D there, then click properties).

2. Now click the "Continue" button if it's there. Permissions box will open up.

3. Now click "Add" button. Type in the Username of the current windows user account you are logged in into the text box.

4. Now your username will appear under 'Group or usernames'.

5. Select your username from that list.

6. Under 'Permissions for <username>', click the check box against "full control" under the 'allow' column. Make sure all check boxes are checked under the Allow column.

7. Click OK. Now wait and watch a bit and click continue whenever asked.

8. Now try accessing the drive. If still not accessible, try after a reboot.

Hope this helps.

 

[southwest]

When I right click on my D: drive and select Properties, then select the Security tab, I see the message "You do not have permission to view or edit this object's permission settings."

There's an Advanced button available, but it only leads to more instances of the message above, except for the Owner tab, which says "Unable to display current owner."

In your list of 8 steps, I can only do Step 1.

 

[nilank]

Click start rb: -- right click Computer -- click Manage.

On the left pane, click Users and group.
On the right pane, right click 'Administrator' (the one which has "builtin admin account" as description).
Click Properties.
Uncheck 'This account is disabled' (or similar, I don't remember exactly) so as to enable the admin account and click OK.
Now logoff and log on to newly available Administrator account.

Now can you access D drive?

Now follow all those 8 steps and while adding username, make sure you enter the username of the account you were normally using.

Report back.

 

[southwest]

I'm sorry, I thought I had mentioned earlier that I had tried using the (normally hidden) Administrator account. Nothing changes when I use that account - still the same exact messages as before.

I appreciate the effort!

 

[nilank]

Ok lemme try a bit more:

Run elevated cmd.
Type this out: takeown /f d: and hit enter.
Now type this: icacls d: /grant <yourcomputersname>\simon:F and hit enter. You can find your computer name in device manager I suppose, at the top.

Now what happens?

If you can't find computer name, see here: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-in/windows-vista/find-your-computer-name

EDIT: OK, so actually I did not read your initial post properly. I think you've already tried this, now it's beyond my scope, sorry.

 

[nilank]

You could try this:

Backup data on D:
Delete the D drive using disk management.
Create new partition again.

Seems like some serious corruption went there.

 

[southwest]

Those last two commands give me "Error. Access is denied."

I agree, I should back that stuff up and recreate the volume, but unfortunately I have no more room anywhere to put it. I guess I'll live with it for a bit until I can get more storage space.

Thanks for hanging in there. I agree, it looks like some kind of corruption of the security/permissions bits.

 

[nilank]

I don't advice doing this, but if this had happened to me, I would have used a linux live distro such as Ubuntu and boot using it, then go to D and remove the 'System volume information' folder (I am not at all sure if permissions are stored here or not) and remove anything extraterrestial located at the root.

If you suddenly decide to do this (I don't advice so please) make sure you have your data backups. Some time ago I had played around with SVI folder, even somehow deleted it but Windows simply created a fresh copy again.