Photos/Files on Windows 10 have little gold locks on them

[nathan h]

Hello,

A few months ago, I moved a bunch of files (mostly photos) to a spare HDD I had lying around, kinda as a backup. I then removed the drive, and stored it in a safe place. In the process of transferring files to the drive, I never added any sort of encryption, I merely treated the drive as a removable device/flash-drive.
Since then, I have re-installed Windows 10 (as far as I can remember, its the same version: W10 Pro N). Now when I insert the drive, all my files, and folders show up, but they don't display thumbnails, and they have little gold locks on them. When I try to view one, I get an error for insufficient permissions.

I have tried searching the internet for a solution, but what differentiates my issue from seemingly the rest of the internet - is that the locks are on the files, as opposed to folders. I can navigate all the folders fine, but every single independent file is locked. Changing sharing options does nothing, same with adding Administrator (Which I am) to permissions.

The files on this disk are pretty important to me, and why the hang Windows decided to do this is beyond me...

Thanks for your time.
~Nate

For reference, the drives folder looks like this:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B7gaiMkyJ4LpeTJrb3dDRzdFYXc/view?usp=sharing

 

[Colif]

Sure looks like they under the control of Encrypted File System. Its obvious from the lock

NOTE: Files and folders you encrypt using EFS can only be decrypted using the Windows login that encrypted the file. Other users on the system will be able to see the files but will not be able to open them, even if they are running as administrator. That means that you also need to be careful you do not forget your login, or you will be locked out of your own files.

https://www.howtogeek.com/178912/how-to-encrypt-files-and-folders-in-windows-8.1-using-efs/

You do this from the File Explorer window. Select a folder or individual files, open the Properties window, click the “Advanced” button under Attributes, and activate the “Encrypt contents to secure data” option.

This encryption is on a per-user basis. Encrypted files can only be accessed by the particular user account that encrypted them. The encryption is transparent. If the user account that encrypted the files is logged in, they’ll be able to access the files without any additional authentication. If another user account is logged in, the files won’t be accessible.

The encryption key is stored in the operating system itself rather than using a computer’s TPM hardware, and it’s possible an attacker could extract it. There’s no full-drive encryption protecting those particular system files unless you also enable BitLocker.

https://www.howtogeek.com/236719/whats-the-difference-between-bitlocker-and-efs-encrypting-file-system-on-windows/

can see if this helps: https://www.tenforums.com/antivirus-firewalls-system-security/76248-how-turn-off-efs-encrypting-file-system-files-e-folder.html

 

[nathan h]

Hey Colif! Thanks for your response! The tenforums page was the most help I've seen so far! Unfortunately, it still doesn't solve my problem. I have successfully taken ownership if the drive, but I haven't been able to decrypt/disable encryption of the files/folders.

The HTG article on creating EFS folders said that you would only be able to decrypt with the user account that created the encryption, (now I know for a fact that I never setup any sort of encryption, but I'm going to continue under the assumption EFS is what is blocking me), when I re-installed W10, I used the same account, and password as I had before, I also am logged in with the same Microsoft account. Shouldn't that grant me access?
Thanks.

 

[Colif]

Somehow Windows 10 can tell that even if you used same id and password, its not the same install. Its odd though as I have not seen it do this before, I know you have to take ownership of files if they are from a previous install as I have done that on this PC but I only have home and I don't think it includes EFS, the option to encrypt is greyed out in file properties here.

I can't offer any help trying to break it but you can ask Microsoft if there is a way to resolve this. Or ask on tenforums, as they often know more than MS do.

 

[nathan h]

Okay, I guess my only other option, besides contacting MS, is to try and recover the Windows 10 install that I created the drives with... :/
Thanks for your help!