HELP- I locked myself out

[Jan Nademlejnsky]

I think I am in trouble. After reformatting HD 3x and loading all my
applications, I was doing final touch ups. I have 2nd HD which I use for
back up of all my important stuff.

I wanted this drive to be inaccessible to everybody else except to
administrator. I could not change this Sharing from my account, which is
weird (I am administrator) My account is named "Jan" and I am the
administrator. I read on News group to go to Safe mode and log as
administrator.

Safe mode, selected Administrator, and then selected D (my backup HD) and
assign Full control to Jan (my account) and to Administrator and Deny
everything for everyone else. This was my mistake. Now D drive is totally
inaccessible. My intent was to be the one who has access to this drive. The
result is that nobody can access to it.

I wanted to reverse it and went to Safe Mode (Restart F8), selected
Administrator and nothing happened. It does not progress any further.

I am facing another format of HD or is there some hope to recover?

Need your help, please.

 

[David N.Douglas]

http://home.eunet.no/~pnordahl/ntpasswd/

I've used it and it works!

 

[Jan Alter]

Hi,
I agree, it works. However, I'm not sure that's the problem here. From
administrator logon can you go to control panel, then administrative tools
and then computer management. From there choose your unshared drive and
probably right click on it for properties to regain use and control.
Good luck,

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

Jan,

Log into a normal user account with Administrator level privileges. Open a Command Prompt window (Start, Run and enter CMD.EXE).

At the command prompt, enter CACLS /?

This will get you the command line options for this utilty. One of the problems with using DENY permissions, is if you Deny access to the Users group, you deny permissions to every user on the computer.

 

[Jan Nademlejnsky]

Thanks Doug,

I have to explore what you suggested, but it is not very clear what I
supposed to do. I have to read on the permissions, because it is not design
for normal people. What is logical to me could produce totally unpredictable
results. I do not consider myself a computer novice, but I have to admit
that I am totally lost in this security issues. I have to educate myself.

I assumed that if I am an administrator and if I have full control, (which I
verified many times before I clicked Apply), that I will have full control.
Obviously, this is not that case. I lost that control and locked myself out.
It is totally illogical to me.

I eventually entered in safe mode (F8) as administrator, which took 1.5
hour to load. I removed Deny access from that locked backup drive and I was
very happy, until I found out that all the files and folders denied me
access. I could not unlock them regardless what I did. I decide to reformat
the back up drive, because I did not wand to fart with this anymore. This is
totally unreasonable and I am disappointed with MS.

Thanks

Jan

Jan,

Log into a normal user account with Administrator level privileges. Open a
Command Prompt window (Start, Run and enter CMD.EXE).

At the command prompt, enter CACLS /?

This will get you the command line options for this utilty. One of the
problems with using DENY permissions, is if you Deny access to the Users
group, you deny permissions to every user on the computer.

--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart Display
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com

 

[Doug Knox MS-MVP]

The basic problem is that the Users group encompasses all other users on the machine. And Deny permissions outweigh Allow permissions. For future reference, rather than using Deny for a specific user or user group, just uncheck Allow. It has the same effect, but only works down stream. Unchecking Allow for Users would restrict all User level accounts, but not Administrators.

I can't fault MS for trying to move away from the 9x platform. As far as security of your computer and information goes, they were much more vulnerable. The problem is that the masses weren't ready for the NTFS file system. I can only assume that MS thought "enough people use it in the workplace, we should be able to migrate them to it in the Home environment." Sadly, "enough people" didn't have the power to change anything in the work place. They just used it and complained when they couldn't do something.

 

[Jim Carlock]

Sticking the XP CD into the CD-ROM and reinstalling
XP might work? I'm thinking along the lines that if it detects
invalid permissions it may correct the permissions.

If that doesn't work, then taking ownership of the drive, then
removing the USERS group (or the group with the DENIED
rights) would get rid of the problem. You'll need to leave the
Administrator or Administrators groups in place, add the
SYSTEM userid to the drive and give FULL CONTROL
to SYSTEM and to Administrators group. Just throwing some
thoughts out. I don't mess with using DENY to deny things. Tried
it once and never messed with it after that.

--
Jim Carlock
Post replies to newsgroup.

Thanks Doug,

I have to explore what you suggested, but it is not very clear what I
supposed to do. I have to read on the permissions, because it is not design
for normal people. What is logical to me could produce totally unpredictable
results. I do not consider myself a computer novice, but I have to admit
that I am totally lost in this security issues. I have to educate myself.

I assumed that if I am an administrator and if I have full control, (which I
verified many times before I clicked Apply), that I will have full control.
Obviously, this is not that case. I lost that control and locked myself out.
It is totally illogical to me.

I eventually entered in safe mode (F8) as administrator, which took 1.5
hour to load. I removed Deny access from that locked backup drive and I was
very happy, until I found out that all the files and folders denied me
access. I could not unlock them regardless what I did. I decide to reformat
the back up drive, because I did not wand to fart with this anymore. This is
totally unreasonable and I am disappointed with MS.

Thanks

Jan

Jan,

Log into a normal user account with Administrator level privileges. Open a
Command Prompt window (Start, Run and enter CMD.EXE).

At the command prompt, enter CACLS /?

This will get you the command line options for this utilty. One of the
problems with using DENY permissions, is if you Deny access to the Users
group, you deny permissions to every user on the computer.

--
Doug Knox, MS-MVP Windows Media Center\Windows Powered Smart Display
Win 95/98/Me/XP Tweaks and Fixes
http://www.dougknox.com