External hd: access denied, just explore

[nickstar69]

Hi. I have a similar problem that the above eusnake advice didn't fix unfortunately. Very frustrated.

It's an external Maxtor Basics 500gb hard drive, it is recognised by windows (can explore it and has drive letter etc) but just cannot access some specific sub-folders, ie. basically half of all the data on the drive. (includes all recently downloaded movies, but for some reason older stuff like data/software open fine.)

It says "access denied" to all these. These were all folders that worked fine before I had to re-install windows XP. Could it be that maxtor external HDDs have the disrupting data (similar to the autorun.inf etc, but different) within a Host Protected Area or something?

I've heard some weird and bad things about maxtor external drives. Could anyone can help pls?!?!

I am having exact same problem. However, I am not using a Maxtor.

 

[Herbie_21]

Hi guys,

Thanks to forums like these, I've come across lots of problems that I know would have taken days if not weeks to solve, not counting nightmares!

Urbantucan's dilemna is one of them, and I want to share a solution that I hope will solve his problem.

1. Do either one of the following [ a. or b. ]:
a. Turn off the Autorun feature of your device (your external hard drive):
1) right-click device -> properties
2) click AutoPlay tab. Under "Actions", click "Select an action to perform" radio button
3) click on "Open folder to view files" to highlight it, then click "OK" button
b. Prompt action to take:
1) right-click device -> properties
2) click AutoPlay tab. Under "Actions", click "Prompt me each time to choose an action"
radio button, then click "OK" button.
2. See if you can open your device (your external hard drive) by double-clicking it.
If you still get an "Access denied" message, release it, unplug it, then plug it in again.
3. If you followed 1.a. above, you should get a window that displays the contents of your
hard drive. If you followed 1.b. above, you should be prompted to take action. Click on
"Open folder to view files", then you should get a window that displays the contents of
your hard drive.
4. Set your folder options to show hidden and system files:
a. click "Tools->Folder optons..."
b. click "View" tab and under "Hidden files and folders", enable "Show hidden files and
folders"
c. uncheck "Hide extensions for known file types"
d. uncheck "Hide protected operating system files [Recommended]"
5. Your hard drive window contents will most likely now show a file called "Autorun.inf"
whose content most likely includes a command line to execute a file (usually another
"Autorun.exe") in either the "Recycled" or "Recycler" subfolder.
6. DELETE, I repeat, DELETE this "Autorun.inf" file.
7. Then, also delete both the "Recycled" or "Recycler" subfolders.
8. Release your external drive.
9. The next time you plug your external hard drive in, you should have your regular icon
back, and your "Access denied" problems gone!
10. Good luck!!!

I know it has been 3 years ago that his thread was published. Nevertheless, I have encountered the same problem just now.
I recently purchased a brand new Western Digital 1 TB ext.drive. I'm tying to open it on a completely restored Dell PC with Windows XP Pro. Unfortunately, the drive arrived in the mail without any instructions or guidelines how to set it up. There were only pictures shown how to connect it with the power supply and the USB cable. I could not find anything helpful on their website, either. They even charge for service support !
When I connected it accordingly, the light showed on the unit and I could notice that was running. It also showed up on MyComputer as a disk on drive E. When I right-clicked on the file, it showed up as Address E:\ with the following entries :
(folder) autorun clicking on this folder opened a picture of " WD"
(folder) System Volume Information clicking on this folder "Access denied"
(icon) autorun.inf clicking on this folder - nothing happened

I also tried on another PC with Win XP and so far was only able to check disc options for file system errors and bad sections. No results were shown, apparently nothing was found. And, so far I did not get "Access" denied, but still don't know how to open a file on that disk which is shown as "Used Space" for 1.25 GB ??? Free Space shows 930 GB.

Sorry, I'm not too familiar with computer science and I sure could use some help how to make that new hard disk work for storage.

Thanks, Herb