External Hard Drive "is not accessible. Access is denied."

Anonymous
2011-01-07T20:27:25+00:00

Hello people:


Today I really need your help. For the past week I have been doing nothing but only tagging my music files which I have in my Western Digital 1TB HDD. Two days I ago I started to notice that some songs wouldn't play half way through or sometimes when I put some songs to play on VLC it would instead play a video which I have somewhere in my external hard drive as well but in a complete different folder location.


My simple solution at first was to unplug and plug back my external HDD (via USB 2.0) and everything would be OK (songs would play correctly). Then yesterday the same thing happened but now this time I could not delete or create any folder inside my WD HDD. I googled for some answers to my problem and I kept reading about the error-checking tool (Properties > Tools > Check Now) so I performed that. Everything was fine after that. Then later on that day I had the same problem and I performed again the error-checking tool process but this time I noticed it took longer!


After that my nightmare started!


Even though my Western Digital 1TB external hard drive was/is visible (icon) in Explorer, I could not access/open it. This pop-up would say "I:\ is not accessible. Access is denied."

The storage information would not show up either.


I googled now about this same problem and I was very scared because I kept reading other people's problem that maybe the hard drive had died or all data was lost, etc.


This is so far what I've done (in chronological order):


  • I have tried to take ownership of my HDD (probably I didn't do it right, if recommend this please explain (: )
  • I have changed the letter drive for my HDD
  • I have already ran the following command:
  1. chkdsk /r I:
  • I have tried to access my Western Digital external HDD in both my Windows 7 Ultimate desktop computer (where it all started) and my laptop which runs Windows 7 Home Premium

Just now, I booted in safe mode and voila! I CAN access my external hard drive  :D . It seems that the chkdsk command deleted some files :/ because I cannot open a certain folder nevertheless, the most important files are safe!


Now, I've come across many "solutions" but since I don't want to make things worse, I rather wait for your feedback before proceeding doing the following:

The problem IS, after all, 'Permissions'.

Permissions need to be set, not only under 'Sharing', but more importantly, 'Security' / 'Advanced'.

On the system that your MyBook was originally installed on, right-click the folder on the drive which you wish to permit access to from other systems, select 'Security' and select 'Advanced'.

Create a new user 'Everyone' and give 'Full Control' to this new user.

The drive will then be available on other systems as mine now is.

Phew!

Source: http://www.fixya.com/support/t203995-local\_disk\_d\_not\_accessible\_access


I recommend that you try the following method.

1. Right-click on the drive. Choose Properties.

2. Click the Security tab.

3. Click the button Advanced.

4. Click the button Edit.

5. Double-click on one permission entry.

6. Give it full control right, and check the box “Apply these permissions to objects and/or containers within this container only”.

Source: http://social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7itprohardware/thread/9cf46555-578a-4899-8df9-e893036cc574


To fix this, you can follow these steps:

1. Click Start , click All programs , and click Accessories .

2. Right-click Command Prompt and click Run as administrator .

3. In Administrator: Command Prompt window,

4. Type

takeown /F (external drive letter) and press Enter.

5. Type

CACLS (external drive letter) /G Administrator:F  and press Enter.

Note: Administrator can be change to your local user account with the administrator permission

7. Restart the computer and test the issue.

Source: http://social.answers.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/w7security/thread/a534c0e9-0f19-4d1a-be93-52d7b1a0e922

Btw .. I am the Administrator in my computer.

Thanks in advance!


~astroX

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Files, folders, and storage

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2011-01-08T18:16:07+00:00

Pretty much what you are looking for. You might also be interested in this link.

You cannot rule out the handiwork of a third party software. Perform clean boot to determine if that is the case.

Also, your external drive may have been infected. Run virus check.


The man likes to play chess; let's get him some rocks

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  1. Anonymous
    2015-11-08T19:43:56+00:00

    Dude thank you. Was actually not doing step 7. Did not think to add the other objects in as well

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  2. Anonymous
    2014-04-11T22:36:38+00:00

    This worked in my case

    "1. Right-click on the drive. Choose Properties.

    2. Click the Security tab.

    3. Click the button Advanced.

    4. Click the button Edit.

    5. Double-click on one permission entry.

    6. Give it full control right, and check the box “Apply these permissions to objects and/or containers within this container only”.

    I've no idea why this was required to b applied all of a sudden, after I had been accessing and writing to my WD external hard drive for 2 years ... but it worked and I now have access again.

    This did not work for me, it just says An error occurred while applying security information to F:\ Access is denied.

    and

    Unable to save permission changes on Local Disk (F:). Access is denied.

    I've tried all solutions, none work. Please help!

    PreyingPrae, VaradJoshi, Harish Nallapatti, I faced the same issue as you and this is what I did on my system having Windows 7 and you could try the same:

    1. Open Computer Management by launching Windows Explorer, Right-Clicking on My Computer, and selecting the "Manage" options
    2. In the left pane of the Computer Management window, expand "Storage" and select "Disk Management"
    3. In the right tab, select the external hard disk that is giving these issues, right-click on it and select Properties
    4. Click the Security tab. 
    5. Click the button Advanced. 
    6. Click the button Edit. 
    7. Ensure that at least the following users are there: Everyone; CREATOR OWNER; System; Administrators; Users
    8. If anyone of them is not there, do the following:

    8.1 Click Add

    8.2 Type the name/s of the user/s that is/are not there as mentioned in #7 separated by semi-colons

    8.3 Click the "Check Names" button. All the users will be underlined. Some will be modified to show usernames specific to the computer

    8.4 Click Ok

    1. In the Permissions Management dialog box, select one user and click the "Full Control"
    2. Do this for all users
    3. Click "Apply". Depending on the number of files in the hard disk, it may take time to apply this new security setting
    4. Click ok

    Notes:

    1. If Steps #1 and #2 don't work for you, please refer to Steps #1 and #2 in the article at: http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Change-add-or-remove-a-drive-letter
    2. You could refer to the post of Santosh Y on May 15, 2011 available at: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_vista-performance/the-disk-check-could-not-performed-because-windows/259f0060-dd6d-e011-8dfc-68b599b31bf5
    3. I did not have to restart my system or disconnect and reconnect my external hard disk after the 12 steps mentioned by me above.

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  3. Anonymous
    2016-03-27T22:46:40+00:00

    I tried just about everyyhing else and found this was the correct way to fix the external HD. Thank- You ever so much

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  4. Anonymous
    2011-11-21T11:07:09+00:00

    OMGosh!  What a life saver.  Simple as it may seem, thank you!  I'm a photographer and I keep backups of my pics on a WD passport and I was in the middle of my transfer process where I copy from card to HD and then backup on CD as a backup to the backup.  I was traveling so my final step which is to make yet another copy to my big "Books" at home when my portable drive died.  Could not access the drive at all.  After running chkdsk /f over night, it came back, however only to find that I couldn't access the drive getting permissions errors.   Thankfully, I found this article and I was able to recover everything.  Thank you soooooo much!  Carmen

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