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File Access Denied After Reinstalling XP

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by kwells1014 Jan 18, 2003 last reply Jan 20, 2003

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I was having all sorts of performance problems / hangs with my XP system, so I copied my files to another drive and reinstalled XP without reformatting my original drive. Now I can see that the folders my files are in exists, but I can't look in some of them. I've been through CACLS and adjusted the ones allowed, but some directories and files just tell me Access Denied. I'm not sure what characteristics distinguish the ones I can see from the ones I cannot look in. The problem exists on both the C: drive and the drives I backed up to. When I reinstalled XP, I had to assign a name to my machine, and now the Admin path for instance is c:\Documents and Settings\Admin.machinename. I can see everything in the new path, but some things inthe old path (c:\Documents and Settings\Admin)I cannot see. I hope someone can explain what I did that screwed me up.

5 replies

by acattr Jan 18, 2003

You need to take ownership of the C:\documents and settings\admin folder.

If your machine is not part of a domain, you must disable simple file sharing, which enables the security tab under a folders properties.

To display the Security tab
Open Folder Options in Control Panel.
Click Start, and then click Control Panel.
Double-click Folder Options.
On the View tab, under Advanced settings, clear Use simple file sharing [Recommended].

Then you can take ownership of the files and folders.

To take ownership of a file or folder
Open Windows Explorer, and then locate the file or folder you want to take ownership of.
Right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.
Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.
In the Change owner to box, click the new owner.
(Optional) To change the owner of all subcontainers and objects within the tree, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.