URGENT permissions horror! URGENT

[Guest]

I have made a very big mistake. Accidentally reset permissions on the root
c: drive and now noone can login to the server, not even administrator.

I need help urgently. Can anyone help me to get back in?

 

[Steven L Umbach]

Here are a couple things to try. Try to access the computer remotely with
something like psexec from SysInternals to see if you can bring up the
command prompt on it and it you are comfortable with cacls try to add at
least administrators to the root folder being sure to use the /E switch.
Otherwise boot the computer from the install cdrom and do a parallel install
of the operating system and from that OS you can change permissions for
built in groups which should get you up and running again. Of course do NOT
format anything if you try a parallel install. The links below explain
more. --- Steve

http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/psexec.shtml
http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;266465

 

[Roger Abell]

What can you do? I realize you said you cannot login, but . . .
The machine boots? Can you map c$ from another machine?

 

[Guest]

Sorry for taking so long to respond. It was a very hectic time. The machine
would not boot. I tried getting in by recovery console with no success.
Tried the parallel install method (thanks Steven) but permissions were so
mucked up it would have taken days to fix them all. Ended up having to
redeploy the server - fortunately no data affected. It took about 8 hours.

Thanks for your help. I learned a lot through this - never mess with
permissions unless you are 100%, totally, absolutely sure of what you are
doing.

 

[Roger Abell]

We could have pointed you at a way to reset the install
partition to permissions as set in installion process.