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| Vista help - "Read Only" on external harddrive | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Feb 28 2009, 08:00 AM (298 Views) | |
| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 08:00 AM Post #1 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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First - Mac people, spare me your comments. Doing searches for a solution to my issue, about half of the hits were from Mac users who were having difficulty with "Read Only" on external drives. No, I'm not going to buy a Mac. Thank you. I have an external harddrive that I used on my XP machine. When I switched over to Vista, everything went to Read Only. I'm able to write new files to the drive, but I cannot modify existing files. If I write a completely new file, then I can make modifications and save them - but if the file existed at the time I switched, I cannot change it. I've gone in and changed the security properties so all users have full permissions. Still can't get rid of the "Read Only" status. I've changed the owner of the drive to my user file, rather than administrator. Still no go. Any ideas? |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| Improviso | Feb 28 2009, 08:14 AM Post #2 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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If you right click on a folder (or file) on that drive and select properties, you'll see that the read-only attribute is checked on. Click it off and it will reset the properties for all the files in that folder. |
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Identifying narcissists isn't difficult. Just look for the person who is constantly fishing for compliments and admiration while breaking down over even the slightest bit of criticism. We have the freedom to choose our actions, but we do not get to choose our consequences. | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 08:21 AM Post #3 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Theoretically, Improv. But that doesn't work. When I reopen the folder, it's checked again. |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| Copper | Feb 28 2009, 08:53 AM Post #4 |
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Shortstop
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I guess the problem is related to ownership of the files, either the user owner or the domain owner (if there is such a thing). If I remember correctly you may be able to delete files that are read-only - I know that doesn't seem right. If this is true you may be able to: 1. Copy them - so that you are now the ownwer of the copied files. 2. Delete the old files Do a couple tests before you delete anything. Don't forget to have good backups!!! |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 08:57 AM Post #5 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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I have done that with some of the files, Copper - especially documents. However, that becomes tricky when I'm dealing with my music collection. I have 25,000 audio files that I use with Media Monkey. Copying and deleting means that they have to be reindexed by my music program (which is fine) and that it's a really time consuming task. If at all possible, I'd love to have a workaround. I've been considering buying a new external drive, which would solve the problem as I could move everything and then reformat the old drive, but it's annoying me that there isn't a solution to this! |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| Copper | Feb 28 2009, 09:08 AM Post #6 |
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Shortstop
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You could 1. Say your drive is called e: 2. Create a folder called e:\old 3. Select everything on e:\ and move it to e:\old 4. Then select everything in e:\old and copy it to e:\ 5. Go to a movie So all the files would have the same names, just a new owner - maybe the music index would work since the new files have all the same old names. It may take a while - obviously - that's a lot of audio files. |
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The Confederate soldier was peculiar in that he was ever ready to fight, but never ready to submit to the routine duty and discipline of the camp or the march. The soldiers were determined to be soldiers after their own notions, and do their duty, for the love of it, as they thought best. Carlton McCarthy | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 09:16 AM Post #7 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Not enough room on the drive to do a full copy. In fact, I can't even copy my whole music directory - it's 95GB, and I only have 75GB free. I suppose I could do parts at a time, but ugh. Or I could just go buy my new external drive and be done with it. I'm starting to think that it might be worth it! |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| George K | Feb 28 2009, 09:19 AM Post #8 |
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Finally
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Drives are cheap. You can get a terabyte for <$100. |
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A guide to GKSR: Click "Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08 Nothing is as effective as homeopathy. I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles. - Klaus, 4/29/18 | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 09:23 AM Post #9 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Oh it gets even better. I just copied a small folder and pasted it onto my C: drive. It's read only. I changed it so I had full permissions. I STILL can't change it so it's not read only. Which might mean that even buying a new drive won't fix the problem. Argh. |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| 1hp | Feb 28 2009, 09:44 AM Post #10 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Can you clarify - when you say external hard drive, is this a USB drive? I have a USB drive (80GB) and WinXP and Vista computers. I actually loaded the drive from WinXP, I'll try it on my Vista computer and see what happens. |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 09:47 AM Post #11 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Yep - USB drive with an external power source. |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| PhJ | Feb 28 2009, 10:29 AM Post #12 |
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Senior Carp
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look here: Help: Vista won't let me write to my external hard drive To fix this, you need to grant Users modify privileges to the drive. Really simple to do. Option one: Right-click the drive letter in Explorer and select properties Click the security tab Click "Edit." You will be asked to elevate. Remember, until you do you are still in admin approval mode and for all practical purposes you are not an admin Select "Users" and check the Modify box Click OK enough times to get back to where you were. |
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| Klaus | Feb 28 2009, 10:36 AM Post #13 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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| Trifonov Fleisher Klaus Sokolov Zimmerman | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 10:37 AM Post #14 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Thanks PhJ - but I've been to that very link and tried that already. Still no go. The permissions are all changed - but I'm still having issues. |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| PhJ | Feb 28 2009, 10:42 AM Post #15 |
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Senior Carp
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have you tried the 3 other solutions in the comments ? here is the 1st one: " I tried enabling sharing and giving my account full access. It worked for about a week and reverted back to its former status. I then looked on the internet again more intensively and found one that works: 1. Basically you create a folder on your local hard drive somewhere, eg. "c:\external_HDD1" 2. Then Right click my computer and select manage 3. Select disk management (under storage) 4. Right click your external drive and select "change drive letter and paths" 5. Click ADD 6. Browse to your folder your created in step one . i.e. c:\external_HDD1 7. click ok and you are done. Then whenever you insert your external drive or usb drive into your pc, you will always be able to access it in the same place, c:\external_HDD1, regardless of what drive letter windows decides to assign to it. Then, to have windows remember shares and permissions on the usb drive, simply go to c:\external_HDD1\folder_to_share and set it to be shared and whenever you plug the drive into the computer that folder will be shared on the network." --- or another: Open command prompt Run diskpart select volume D (substitute your drive letter) attributes volume clear readonly |
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| 1hp | Feb 28 2009, 10:47 AM Post #16 |
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Fulla-Carp
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I have no problem on my Vista computer with files on an external USB drive written from a Vista PC. However a search on the internet shows lots who have had the same problem. I have seen several links to the following, with suggestions that this is the solution: Vista Read problem 1 The solution from this is: The parts causing you trouble are the last two lines. The second line grants Administrators full control. You are an administrator, but because you are running under a non-elevated token, you do not have Administrators in your token, so that membership doesn't help you. The second line grants users read. You are also a member of users. Thus, when running in admin approval mode under UAC, your total rights to this drive is read. To fix this, you need to grant Users modify privileges to the drive. Really simple to do. Option one: 1. Right-click the drive letter in Explorer and select properties 2. Click the security tab 3. Click "Edit." You will be asked to elevate. Remember, until you do you are still in admin approval mode and for all practical purposes you are not an admin 4. Select "Users" and check the Modify box 5. Click OK enough times to get back to where you were. The other option is to do it from an elevated command line. 1. Click the Window circle 2. Click All Programs: Accessories 3. Right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator" 4. Elevate 5. Run this command: icacls d:\ /grant BUILTIN\Users:(OI)(CI)(M) Substitute whatever drive letter your external drive is mapped to for d:\. OI means "let objects (files) inherit this ACE". CI means "let containers (directories) inherit this ACE". M means "modify". An ACE is an Access Control List Entry, in other words, the entries in the ACL that grants or denies someone permission to the object. Else look at: Vista Read problem 2 There is an official Microsoft solution: Changes to the DACL |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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| 1hp | Feb 28 2009, 10:49 AM Post #17 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Oops, you've already tried the first soln above. |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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| 1hp | Feb 28 2009, 10:50 AM Post #18 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Is external drive NTFS or FAT format? |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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| 1hp | Feb 28 2009, 10:54 AM Post #19 |
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Fulla-Carp
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Did you try the second part of the above solution (in green) - which is the official microsoft way of making the change - run icacls from command line? |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 11:00 AM Post #20 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Ok - the very last suggestion seems to have worked to some extent. My Word documents are still coming up in Word as read-only, even though the file itself doesn't say they are (WEIRD!) but each individual file says it is no longer read only. Interestingly, the problem I was trying to deal with (a Media Monkey thing) still isn't resolved. Ah well. Thanks for the help! |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 11:01 AM Post #21 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Oops - I was typing while you were replying - it was PhJ's last solution that worked. Though i'm going to check out the "official" fix. |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| dolmansaxlil | Feb 28 2009, 11:05 AM Post #22 |
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HOLY CARP!!!
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Ok - I looked at the Windows version of a fix. My decision is that you shouldn't make a program with weird glitchy things that end users will have to fix, and then have the only solution be something that the average end user can't understand. I'm pretty computer savvy - that particular article is WAY over the heads of about 95% of computer users. |
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"Your first 10,000 photographs are your worst." ~ Henri Cartier-Bresson My Flickr Photostream | |
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| PhJ | Feb 28 2009, 12:10 PM Post #23 |
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Senior Carp
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yep, they really should have automated that.. |
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| 1hp | Feb 28 2009, 12:17 PM Post #24 |
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Fulla-Carp
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This one appears to be a more up to date version of the Microsoft solution - evidently "Cacl" is to be replaced with a more updated "iCacls" since Vista was introduced. It also is a little more easy to follow: The other option is to do it from an elevated command line. 1. Click the Window circle (Start button, bottom left) 2. Click All Programs: Accessories 3. Right-click on Command Prompt and select "Run as administrator" 4. Elevate 5. Run this command: icacls d:\ /grant BUILTIN\Users:(OI)(CI)(M) Substitute whatever drive letter your external drive is mapped to for d:\. OI means "let objects (files) inherit this ACE". CI means "let containers (directories) inherit this ACE". M means "modify". An ACE is an Access Control List Entry, in other words, the entries in the ACL that grants or denies someone permission to the object. The Elevate step just means to click on "Continue" when the little window pops up in response to step 3. You need to type the "icacls d:\ /grant BUILTIN\Users:(OI)(CI)(M)" at the command line prompt - cursor should be blinking for you to start typing - if it isn't left click on the window. |
| There are 10 kinds of people in this world, those that understand binary and................ | |
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