X:\ is not accessible.; Access is denied.

[yawnmoth]

Whenever I try to click on X:\ in My Computer I get the following:

X:\ is not accessible.

Access is denied.

That's kinda funny given that earlier today, chkdsk /F was able to not
only run on the drive but actually told me a few filenames (the
records for those files had to be updated).

I ran Ubuntu LiveCD and was able to access the drive just fine from
that, as well.

My question is... given all this, why am I unable to access the drive
from Windows Vista? Sure, maybe the drive is going bad, but that
doesn't explain why Ubuntu LiveCD and chkdsk /F can access it and
Windows Vista cannot.

So, short of just abandoning Window Vista all together in favor of
Ubuntu, what can I do?

 

[Kerry Brown]

Is X:\ a mapped drive, external drive, partition? Some more information
would be helpful.

In the Disk Management console does X: show up as healthy?

 

[yawnmoth]

Is X:\ a mapped drive, external drive, partition? Some more information
would be helpful.

In the Disk Management console does X: show up as healthy?

According to Disk Management, the Status is "Healthy (Primary
Partition)". It's an internal drive and I'm not sure what you mean by
mapped drive. It's not a mapped network drive if that's what you
mean.

Incidentally, I right clicked on the drive letter, clicked on the
Security tab, and took a look at the permissions and... none of the
Allow permissions were checked off. I checked Allow under Full
Control for SYSTEM and Administrators and a few hours later they were
updated. Unfortunately, I still can't access the drive.

 

[DanS]

According to Disk Management, the Status is "Healthy (Primary
Partition)". It's an internal drive and I'm not sure what you mean by
mapped drive. It's not a mapped network drive if that's what you
mean.

Incidentally, I right clicked on the drive letter, clicked on the
Security tab, and took a look at the permissions and... none of the
Allow permissions were checked off. I checked Allow under Full
Control for SYSTEM and Administrators and a few hours later they were
updated. Unfortunately, I still can't access the drive.

Is your account an Administrator account ?

 

[Gordon]

According to Disk Management, the Status is "Healthy (Primary
Partition)". It's an internal drive

Very unusual for an INTERNAL partition to be given "X" as a drive letter -
did you install this drive?

 

[Gordon]

Very unusual for an INTERNAL partition to be given "X" as a drive letter -
did you install this drive?

X Y and Z are usually mapped networked drives. Was your machine part of a
corporate network at some point and now isn't?

 

[Kerry Brown]

According to Disk Management, the Status is "Healthy (Primary
Partition)". It's an internal drive and I'm not sure what you mean by
mapped drive. It's not a mapped network drive if that's what you
mean.

Incidentally, I right clicked on the drive letter, clicked on the
Security tab, and took a look at the permissions and... none of the
Allow permissions were checked off. I checked Allow under Full
Control for SYSTEM and Administrators and a few hours later they were
updated. Unfortunately, I still can't access the drive.

Was the drive partitioned and formatted from this Vista installation? In the
Security tab are there any Unknown Users with a SID but no user name?

If the drive came from another Windows installation you may have to take
ownership then give yourself permission to access it. This is a two step
process. You have to take ownership then exit and restart Windows Explorer
before you can grant yourself Full Control.

 

[yawnmoth]

(e-mail address removed):






Is your account an Administrator account ?

Yup - it is indeed.

 

[yawnmoth]

Very unusual for an INTERNAL partition to be given "X" as a drive letter -
did you install this drive?

Yes - I changed the drive letter. Read an article suggesting that
might fix the problem so I tried X.

 

[yawnmoth]

Was the drive partitioned and formatted from this Vista installation? In the
Security tab are there any Unknown Users with a SID but no user name?

The drive was partitioned (1 partition) / formatted under Windows XP.
There were only two users in the Security tab - SYSTEM and
Adminstrative user.

If the drive came from another Windows installation you may have to take
ownership then give yourself permission to access it. This is a two step
process. You have to take ownership then exit and restart Windows Explorer
before you can grant yourself Full Control.

The 'Current owner' was 'Unable to display current owner'. I changed
the owner to the currently logged in user (an Administrator; the only
Administrator), rebooted, and... it didn't work. Still can't access
the drive.

Was a little surprised it took pretty no much no time at all when
granting the Administrator and the SYSTEM user Full Access permissions
took a few hours...

 

[Kerry Brown]

The drive was partitioned (1 partition) / formatted under Windows XP.
There were only two users in the Security tab - SYSTEM and
Adminstrative user.


The 'Current owner' was 'Unable to display current owner'. I changed
the owner to the currently logged in user (an Administrator; the only
Administrator), rebooted, and... it didn't work. Still can't access
the drive.

Was a little surprised it took pretty no much no time at all when
granting the Administrator and the SYSTEM user Full Access permissions
took a few hours...

Once you have ownership you then have to give yourself the needed
permissions.

 

[yawnmoth]

Once you have ownership you then have to give yourself the needed
permissions.

Presumably the fact that I gave the Administrators group Full access
permissions should give the lone Admin account I have full access
permissions?

None-the-less, I added that lone Admin account and tried to grant it
Full access permissions, as well, but, upon doing so, I got a bunch of
the following:

Error Applying Security

An error occurred while applying security information to:

X:\whatever

Access is denied.

 

[yawnmoth]

Presumably the fact that I gave the Administrators group Full access
permissions should give the lone Admin account I have full access
permissions?

None-the-less, I added that lone Admin account and tried to grant it
Full access permissions, as well, but, upon doing so, I got a bunch of
the following:

Error Applying Security

An error occurred while applying security information to:

X:\whatever

Access is denied.

I take this back - I now have access to the root directory but a lot
of the folders contained therein remain inaccessible.

If I do each folder contained therein individually, I get access, but
if I try to do them all at once via the root folder, it doesn't work.

Any ideas?

 

[Kerry Brown]

I take this back - I now have access to the root directory but a lot
of the folders contained therein remain inaccessible.

If I do each folder contained therein individually, I get access, but
if I try to do them all at once via the root folder, it doesn't work.

Any ideas?

Go into the Advanced settings and make sure "Replace all child object
permissions with inheritable permissions from this object" is checked.

 

[yawnmoth]

Go into the Advanced settings and make sure "Replace all child object
permissions with inheritable permissions from this object" is checked.

I did that after doing "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects"
and it worked. Thanks!

I am still curious, though - the files, previously, had an owner of
'Unable to display current owner'. I was able to edit the permissions
for the Administrator group, all the same. This begs the question...
why wasn't my own account, as an Administrative account, able to
access the files when the Administrator group had been granted
permission to do so? Maybe this is due to UAC?

Of course, I don't know how to create a file with owner 'Unable to
display current owner', either. The only thing I can figure with that
is that maybe chkdsk /F can, under certain circumstances, delete the
owner information if not, perhaps, all security descriptors...