[SOLVED] Locked out of my harddrive?

[jamespromiii]

I believe I may have screwed up, I accidently disabled all access to my harddrive in the security tab, if you check out the video you'll see what's up. How do I get full access to my HDD again? Also (in the second video) I'm trying to figure out why there's 4 partitions on the HDD but I can't extend them to the main drive.

First video
Second video

 

[USAFRet]

OK....those two vids are too fuzzy and jump around too much to tell what is going on.

Give us a screencap of the Disk Management window, and we can go from there.
Many questions to follow.

 

[ex_bubblehead]

In agreement with the above. Those videos are way too fuzzy and do not at all show exactly what you did.

However, if you removed "administrators", "everyone" and your specific account from the access list/s on the C drive you're looking at a complete wipe/reinstall to fix this. Hope you've been backing up.

 

[jamespromiii]

Disk management
Security tab
Security tab 2

I'm not worried about anything on the drives, I have everything backed up.

 

[Math Geek]

you can try logging in as the built in administrator account. if it does not have access, then you're out of luck and will have to reinstall.

though you might be able to make changes through the command line from the troubleshooting part of your installer disk. i'd have to look up how to do that again as i've not done that in a very long time. but i know you can change permissions through the command line, though i believe you do have to be able to log in as the administrator to do anything.

 

[rikke-]

Disk management
Security tab
Security tab 2

I'm not worried about anything on the drives, I have everything backed up.

On that last picture, what happens if you press change and set yourself as owner? You should be able to add your permissions back after that

 

[fzabkar]

AFAICT, disk 0 is 750GB, disk 1 is 500GB and disk 2 is 1024GB (= 1.024 TB)

Is Disk 2 an SSD?

 

[jamespromiii]

On that last picture, what happens if you press change and set yourself as owner? You should be able to add your permissions back after that

This

AFAICT, disk 0 is 750GB, disk 1 is 500GB and disk 2 is 1024GB (= 1.024 TB)

Is Disk 2 an SSD?

Yeah disk 2 is SSD

you can try logging in as the built in administrator account. if it does not have access, then you're out of luck and will have to reinstall.

though you might be able to make changes through the command line from the troubleshooting part of your installer disk. i'd have to look up how to do that again as i've not done that in a very long time. but i know you can change permissions through the command line, though i believe you do have to be able to log in as the administrator to do anything.

I have no idea how to do this, is it really that complex to get the drive back up and running?

 

[jamespromiii]

By the way I don't know what you were viewing those videos on but they come in crystal clear on my end.

 

[USAFRet]

By the way I don't know what you were viewing those videos on but they come in crystal clear on my end.

This is what appeared:

 

[DSzymborski]

Yup, look just as blurry to me. They look like they were recorded in an ultra-low resolution.

 

[Math Geek]

I have no idea how to do this, is it really that complex to get the drive back up and running?

when you start messing with permissions and other advanced stuff, then yes it can get complicated real quick. looking at the blurry video you got to the security window and there are no users listed with any permissions at all. this is why you can't access anything.

from there you went to the advanced window and to the "add user or group" window. that is where you need to start adding users back if it will let you. start with the "administrators" group. give that one full control if you can. this will allow you to get to all the files assuming your user is an administrator account.

then add the "users" group and give them everything but "full control" and "modify"

then don't mess with it anymore until you know EXACTLY what you are doing

there are a ton of other users and groups but for now those are the important ones and should get you back into your files.

as a side note, the "administrators" group and having yourself as an administrator is not the same as the built in Administrator account which is disabled on win 10 by default. this is a common point of confusion for novice users. putting yourself as an administrator gives you a lot more access to the system, but the built in Administrator account has almost limitless access which is what makes it so dangerous to use day to day and why it is disabled by default.

 

[rikke-]

This

Yeah on that picture, press "find now" then select your account in the list that pops up, that will make you the owner of the object, after that you can add yourself (in the same way) on the previous page and tick all permissions, that should get you your drive back

 

[jamespromiii]

Ok I can get into the drive but now for some reason I can't format it? Also why is there 4 different partitions on it?

 

[Math Geek]

i believe formatting is an administrator thing and not regular user. but if you messed up the permissions it may not even have that attached.

i'd have to research as i've never seen that issue created manually so not even sure how it happened to have an idea how to fix it.

can you tell us about what you did/were doing to create these issues. it may help understand how to get back to where it needs to be. i've tinkered with all those settings many times and never done anything like what it appears you have done. some info on what you were thinking and what you did can go a long way to us better understanding what is going on

 

[jamespromiii]

I got the harddrive formatted, I had to boot from Windows install because apparently it was booting from the harddrive but it still has four partitions and I can't extend it all to one drive.

 

[Math Geek]

those other partitions are needed for it to work right. you can't remove them. it won't work if you do.

again not sure what it is you have done and are trying to do now, but i am pretty sure you are going to end up with a completely broken system and will need to do a total fresh install very shortly if you don't stop!!