Lost access to secondary HDDs after reinstall of windows 10

[chadbunderwood]

I have three hard drives, an SSD for the OS and two other HDDs that hold pictures and videos.

I had to reinstall Windows on the SSD, but I read that the clean install would not impact my other HDDs. However, when I tried to open them up it is telling me that I don't have permission.

How do I give myself permission to get into these drives after my fresh install?

Thanks.

 

[MeanMachine41]

Hi chadbunderwood You will have to take ownership of the drives files and folders.

Go to Disk Management.
Left click HDD Icon on the drive you wish to take ownership of.> Properties > Security Tab > Advanced > Change owner and type in the name of your current user account then click "check name" > the screen will flicker and you will see two check boxes > select BOTH boxes (one under owner named "replace owner on subcontainers and objects" AND the other on the bottom named "replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object") You must select BOTH of these boxes or you won't be able to access each file, just the folders. It will take some time to process the permission changes depending on how many files your drive has. Can take some time, around 30mins.

Note: Do not do this on your C: Drive as you would have to reinstall Windows.

 

[SuperSoph_WD]

Hey there, @chadbunderwood!

I'd second @MeanMachine's suggest and advise you to take ownership of your secondary drives.
If you face any difficulties understanding the step-by-steps, check this Windows tutorial. It gives a couple of methods you can use to get your permissions for the drives.

Best of luck! Hope it helps.
SuperSoph_WD