Question Drive security/access

[smurph1]

I am the owner and one of two users of my pc.

I recently added my partner, and tried to secure a drive to limit access only to myself.

Initially I could only open the drive and see all the files, but have somehow changes security so that i can open them.

Now i can't save to or download a t0rrent, any ideas how to resolve and re-gain my original security settings?

 

[popatim]

Any idea of what changes you made?

 

[Grobe]

Please also include OS (Windows / Mac OS / Linux / BSD, etc)

 

[smurph1]

Sorry, Win 10...it was a while ago and can't fully recall, and am still trying to resolve...think i tired to change security properties of the drive by removing user/users, which in effect removed me, as well as the intended person. Part of the issue trying to resolve is that although i am an admin I am not the admin, some quirk in win10, that there is some difference in this!

 

[hang-the-9]

Sorry, Win 10...it was a while ago and can't fully recall, and am still trying to resolve...think i tired to change security properties of the drive by removing user/users, which in effect removed me, as well as the intended person. Part of the issue trying to resolve is that although i am an admin I am not the admin, some quirk in win10, that there is some difference in this!

Find a system restore point before you did these changes, see if that helps. And don't mess with drive permissions. Not really sure what you were trying to do, but it is not the right way. If you have two users on the system, and they are not admin level accounts, they won't have access to the files of the other account. I always say the easiest way to break something is to try to fix something that is not broken. You don't need to figure out some new way to secure files, Windows already includes things, and there are many known ways of doing this also.

If you can't fix things with a restore point, do a repair setup of Windows to get the permissions back to what they were. Then create two normal accounts for the two of you to use.

 

[smurph1]

OK, had tried restore soonest after i did this with no luck.
Will try the win10 repair, will it work for a drive that is not the C drive?

 

[hang-the-9]

OK, had tried restore soonest after i did this with no luck.
Will try the win10 repair, will it work for a drive that is not the C drive?

Drive letter does not matter, the repair works on the Windows setup, if the setup was done on another drive, it will run it anyway.

 

[smurph1]

Sorry for delay, I am working at this sporadically due to being away from home, and most tutorials and videos for such were useless, mainly instructing on start-up repair, to get the repair you suggested took some figuring out!
Anyway, bad news, it hasn't resolved the issue....drive permissions remain as before....any other ideas?

 

[hang-the-9]

Sorry for delay, I am working at this sporadically due to being away from home, and most tutorials and videos for such were useless, mainly instructing on start-up repair, to get the repair you suggested took some figuring out!
Anyway, bad news, it hasn't resolved the issue....drive permissions remain as before....any other ideas?

Was this not the drive Windows was installed on? A repair won't help you there if you changed rights on another drive. You can go back to the security options you were in and see if it lets you take ownership of the files. Another option would be to boot off a secondary OS like a Linux Live disk, copy the files you need that way to a backup drive. It is not easy to fix this stuff without being there since we can't see exactly what files or folders you did this to or exactly what rights and users you changed.

I always say, the best way to break something is to try to fix something that is not broken. Windows has built in security to keep user files isolated from standard accounts, once you start messing with rights manually, that all goes to hell especially if the person doing the changes does not know about the consequences of changing things and what account and folders are OK to mess with.

You may need to bring the system to a local IT tech to look over or just start clean by doing that backup to another system, and formatting this second drive with your files to reset the folder permissions.

 

[BadAsAl]

Why not enable the built in Administrator account then login as that and add yourself back to the drive settings? I use method 1 here:

https://www.technipages.com/windows-administrator-account-login-screen

Then logout, log back in as yourself and if all is good disable the account again (just change the Active:yes to Active:no in method 1).

 

[smurph1]

Ok guys, thanks for further help.
Yes, not C drive, thus win.op.sys not on it, trying to avoid formatting it. And yes i now know what i meddled with was incorrect, hence this hell.
BadAsAI - all those solution's in that link don't seem to work for my version of win10, but type cmd holding the CTRL+SHIFT press ENTER does.

Anyway I insert link to screenshot of my C & F drives, so you can the difference and maybe advise how better to rectify drive F.
https://ibb.co/wR64yjy
An another link, showing screenshot of accounts in cmd, i'm a little confuse why it doesn't show me/mine?
https://ibb.co/Kq8nykH