WinXP MCE can't see External Hard Drive (USB or Firewire)

[Aubrey]

I just got a new HP Media PC running XP Media Center Edition. I have an
external USB/Firewire hard drive containing over 30 GB of MP3 music
files. But when I connect this external drive to the new PC via USB 2.0
or firewire, I get a "Access Denied" error message (when I click on the
drive letter in Win Explorer).

I can connect this external drive to other Win2000 Pro machines with no
problems. I get the same "Access Denied" error. But all I have to do to
fix it is to right-click the drive letter, select Properties, click the
Security tab, and add myself as a user with full rights.

But XP Media Center Edition doesn't have a Security tab in the drive's
Properties dialog box. Then I read online that the Security tab is only
available in XP-Professional. With XP-Home or XP-MCE, you have to boot
in SafeMode to see the Security tab. OK, I tried this. But when I boot
in SafeMode, the drive letter doesn't show up in Windows Explorer (I
presume the USB or firewire drivers are not loaded when in SafeMode).

So here are my questions:

1. Why did Microsoft remove the ability for XP-Home and XP-MCE to
access the Security tab?
2. Is security only important for professionals?
3. Are external USB or Firewire drives supported by XP-Home/XP-MCE, or
not?
4. How can I access my external drive in XP-MCE?
5. Is there a way to take ownership of the external drive?
6. Is there a Pro version of XP-MCE I can upgrade to?
7. Am I basically screwed?

Thanks for any help,
Aubrey

 

[Robert Moir]

1. Why did Microsoft remove the ability for XP-Home and XP-MCE to
access the Security tab?

They didn't remove it from XP MCE. They removed it from XP Home, except for
safe mode (a decision I diagree with). Keep in mind that for Microsoft
Windows XP Home is the first "home user" version of a particular "family" of
products that have been aimed at business needs for ages - it's pretty clear
that mistakes have been made and hopefully they'll be corrected in the
future.

They hid it a little on computers running XP Pro and systems such as XP
Tablet edition and XP MCE which are based on XP Pro (and not XP Home).

2. Is security only important for professionals?

What kind of answer do you expect to that question? The security tab is
hidden in the conditions I describe above due to the potential for
inexperienced users to make mistakes and lock themselves out of important
data, even to the extent of changing security on their operating system
drive so the computer won't boot any more.

Security is important and so is trying to protect people from themselves. As
I've said, I don't agree with some of the design decisions that were taken
with XP for home users, but to make everything available to everyone at the
drop of a hat would cause as many problems as the current method of hiding
stuff and making people play games to use it.

3. Are external USB or Firewire drives supported by XP-Home/XP-MCE, or
not?

Of course they are. I've got one plugged in to mine right now. If you intend
the drive to be portable and don't need the security generally you can avoid
this problem in the future by removing the security settings from the whole
drive and setting it so that everyone has access by default.

4. How can I access my external drive in XP-MCE?
5. Is there a way to take ownership of the external drive?

On my copy of XP MCE, removing the tick from Explorer, tools menu, folder
options, VIEW tab, "Use simple file sharing (Recommended)" seems to work
quite well for enabling the security tab. With that done, you know where to
go from there.

6. Is there a Pro version of XP-MCE I can upgrade to?

MCE pretty much is the "pro" version of XP.


--
--
Rob Moir, Microsoft MVP for servers & security
Website - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk
Virtual PC 2004 FAQ - http://www.robertmoir.co.uk/win/VirtualPC2004FAQ.html

Kazaa - Software update services for your Viruses and Spyware.

 

[Aubrey]

Rob,

Thanks for the tip. Disabling the "Use simple file sharing
(Recommended)" option did the trick. One more question: did MS intend
for this option to be the one that controls whether the Security tab is
available? I would never have guessed to try this.
Thanks again,
Aubrey

 

[Robert Moir]

Rob,

Thanks for the tip. Disabling the "Use simple file sharing
(Recommended)" option did the trick. One more question: did MS intend
for this option to be the one that controls whether the Security tab
is available? I would never have guessed to try this.

Yeah its intentional. Incredibly badly designed for the reason you mention
above, but intentional none the less.

Glad things are fixed now!

Rob