Access Denied in XP on NTFS Volumes

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I have tried to apply the solutions in these links and elsewhere, to no avail.

Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421
Set, view, change, or remove file and folder permissions in
Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308418/en-us
Set, view, change, or remove special permissions for files and
folders in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308419/en-us

I've just installed XP Home on a friend's computer and I've installed all
the updates from MS. I have AVG Free virus scanner, MS Firewall and MS
Defender running. I've installed and I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1. My friends
system is working fine.

I've used my 40G USB drive to good effect during this process, it works fine
on the new system, but anything I write to it on the new system I can't
access on any other system - I get access denied. As far as I can tell I've
not inadvertantly enabled EFS etc.. One of the consequences of this
behaviour was that I couldn't access my mail profile, mail folders and
Firefox profile that I keep on the portable drive so I can access them from
wherever - hotels, internet cafes, work places. Fortunately they were backed
up elsewhere.

The reason I think the solutions offered elsewhere aren't working for me
are, they either are folder based ie they require a folder properties
security sheet, or they assume that the Use Simple File Sharing setting is
available in the folder options/view/advanced options list - which it is
NOT!!!

My friend has also spoken of doing what I do, ie keeping her documents and
internet access s/w on a portable drive, so she can carry it in her
purse/handbag.

Please don't suggest converting to FAT, my portable drive contains a
database that uses hardlinks and junction folders extensively.
 
(e-mail address removed),
Philip said:
I have tried to apply the solutions in these links and
elsewhere, to no avail.

Take Ownership of a File or Folder in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/?id=308421
Set, view, change, or remove file and folder permissions in
Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308418/en-us
Set, view, change, or remove special permissions for files
and
folders in Windows XP
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308419/en-us

I've just installed XP Home on a friend's computer and I've
installed all the updates from MS. I have AVG Free virus
scanner, MS Firewall and MS Defender running. I've
installed and I'm using Firefox 1.5.0.1. My friends system
is working fine.

I've used my 40G USB drive to good effect during this
process, it works fine on the new system, but anything I
write to it on the new system I can't access on any other
system - I get access denied. As far as I can tell I've not
inadvertantly enabled EFS etc.. One of the consequences of
this behaviour was that I couldn't access my mail profile,
mail folders and Firefox profile that I keep on the portable
drive so I can access them from wherever - hotels, internet
cafes, work places. Fortunately they were backed up
elsewhere.

The reason I think the solutions offered elsewhere aren't
working for me are, they either are folder based ie they
require a folder properties security sheet, or they assume
that the Use Simple File Sharing setting is available in the
folder options/view/advanced options list - which it is
NOT!!!

My friend has also spoken of doing what I do, ie keeping her
documents and internet access s/w on a portable drive, so
she can carry it in her purse/handbag.

Please don't suggest converting to FAT, my portable drive
contains a database that uses hardlinks and junction folders
extensively.
Click to expand...

Keep in mind that because you're running Windows XP Home
Edition you'll need to boot into Safe Mode in order to gain
access to the Security tab on a folders properties sheet.

Reboot the computer and start tapping the F8 key.
Keep tapping F8 until the Windows Advanced Options Menu is
displayed.
Use the up arrow key to select Safe Mode.
Hit Enter.
Logon with an account that is a Computer Administrator.
Right click the folder you're trying to access and select
Properties from the menu.
You should now see the Security tab.

Good luck

Nepatsfan
 
Yep, done that - the problem is that XP seems to have taken ownership of the
device, when ever anything is written including to an existing file like a
mail container file or my PIM's database then the ownership seems to change
so that I cant access the data on any other machine other than this one I
just set up.

There are hundreds maybe thousands of folders on the disk.

Why is this system behaving this way and not others, I've had the disk for
18 months and it's been attached to at least a couple of dozen computers on 4
continents and I've never had these sort of problems, and I can't blame
anyone but me, as I built both this one and my own.
 
Squarks, the plot thickens

this morning I restored the Portable Firefox, Portable Thunderbird and PIM
folders from the backup on my computer. Now this (my friends computer)
system can't access them - which it could yesterday, and they were to as was
yetrday morning.

Starting to think that it's the drive itself.
 
If anyone's interested I have solved this problem by reformating my portable
drive and doing something that I've been thinking about for ages -
repartitioning it.

So far so good, have plugged it into three machines each of which has been
able to see the three drives.

I put mount points to partitions 2 and 3 into the root directory of
partition 1, I could not access anything via them, access denied problems -
but I could access them via the drive letter "G" and "H", so I've scrapped
the mount point idea for the time being, which is a pity.

Cheers PhilD
 
Hello everyone / anyone, I'm very interested to know if there is
another solution to this problem other than reformatting the drive.
I'm having the same problem but on my XP Home system drive (C:).
Sometimes when I create a directory or file from within an application
(such as paint) after closing the app I can no longer access the file
or the newly created folder.
I think I have discovered why I can't access the files/folder, but I
don't know WHY IT IS HAPPENING!!!
When I log in as the administrator in safe mode I still can't access
the files until I change the file's security permission settings...
here's the strange bit...there is nothing in the permission list! No
SYSTEM, no Administrator no nothin'!
After I add myself to the permission list with full control I can
access the files and folders again.

Why is it doing this?

Possibility 1: Virus/trojan (This seems unlikely)
A virus/trojan I haven't detected despite scanning is changing security
setting to lock files?
Why new files though?

Possibility 2: Corrupt setting
A couple of weeks ago I was rendering some home video in Pinnacle
Studio 9 with new RAM installed. My normally graceful XP Home OS died
quite messily a number of times until I manually fixed the RAM settings
in BIOS. Why do I mention this?
One time during reboot after a nasty crash the OS decided to do some
sort of error checking on the drive and reported that the security
descriptors on thousands of file segments were corrupt and it
automatically replaced them with a 'default' one.
I don't know what this means or why it happened but it took about 1/2
hour (with me pacing nervously expecting nothing to work afterwards).
Then everything seemed fine... until these problems started popping up.

How do I fix it? I have no idea. I going to try and replicate the
security/permissions settings from my stand-alone XP system at work to
my pc at home and see what happens.

Any comments/suggestions would be much appreciated.
 
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