I just installed Windows 7 RC 64-bit to my primary drive -- clean install, format and everything. Everything was going great until I tried accessing files on my media (data) drive. This drive is an NTFS drive that I ran with Windows XP SP3. My user name was the same and the computer name is the same... however the unique id is probably different. When I look at the files permissions I see a user icon with the red x, (not found) and just the raw user GUID. I've tried taking ownership of the top level folder and all subfolders/files, and then setting permissions, but that doesn't seem to work correctly. I can also change permissions on every single file by itself, but that is hardly practical. All my music and documents are on there. Is there a procedure to get access to NTFS files from a previous install? Can someone point me to the correct docs if there are, I couldn't find anything in the system help. Or is this a bug in Win7 RC 64-bit? Thanks!-lk

Larry,Can you still boot to Windows XP? If so, you can set the permissions to 'Everyone', and that should give access in Windows 7. Also, when you take permissions on something, there is a checkbox that is not checked by default to 'Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object'... Buried in Advanced security settings.

Unfortunately no, I'll have to reinstall XP... perhaps I was too overzealous -- should have installed this to a VM first. I did see the "replace all child object" checkbox, and did do that, but no effect. If this was linux, I'd just sudo in and change the owner recursively on the folder, easy. Even if it was a network drive, I could tap into the gid/uid on my machine and make it match so that local writes and network writes "just work". But this security model is confusing. I've had to clean reinstall Win XP 3 times before, so I know I can go back and make the change you suggest -- (which btw, sounds like an awfully easy way to bypass all this additional NTFS security.) Before I go and do all that, are you sure there's no other way to fix this? -lk

Larry,It's certainly not the best way to deal with it. I read in one post that when you open the permissions on those drives, that there are 'unknown' names on the list, and that deleting them and resetting your permissions might help. If you search these forums, there are a number of threads on this. You might find another way. I'll see what I can dig up in the mean time.

Here's onethat is solved, and here's one that isn't. And one that uses the 'Everyone' solution.

Ok, I found a post about similar security problems in Vista: How To Quickie: Vista Permissions So... perhaps this is only new to me because I was using XP for a long time. I was also searching for some tool or command line "fix permissions" -- like Mac OSX has, but apparently there is no standard way to do this. Here's an interesting tidbit on doing the changes from the command line (also vista centric): Delete Undeletable Files in Windows Vista [can't download PowerShell in Win7 - windows GA blocks this] And here's one about doing it recursively via PowerShell : Take Ownership and Full Control in Vista -lk

Ok, I think I found out why this was causing problems. When they say close all open references to the files, they mean EVERYTHING. ITunes running in the background or even and open folder is enough to prevent the changes from refreshing. So, here are the steps I took to fix this: 1) reboot 2) make sure nothing else is running (closed, not minimized). Phase I: Gaining Ownership... 3) go to the target folder and right-click, select "Properties" 4) select the "Security" tab. 5) click the "Advanced" button 6) select the "Owner" tab. 7) click the "Edit" button 8) Click the "Other users or groups" button 9) In the "Select User or Group" dialog, under "Enter the object name to select", type your name 10) click the "Check Names" button. Hopefully it should match to the actual account. 11) click OK. 12) on the "Advanced Security Settings for <folder name>" dialog: select the account you just added (it should be visible under the "Change owner to:" field. 13) make sure to check the checkbox "Replace owner on subcontainers and objects". 14) click OK. wait for the status dialog to complete. 15) close EVERYTHING! don't just minimize it to the taskbar, close it and wait a few seconds. Phase II: Changing Permissions... 16) go to the target folder and right-click, select "Properties" 17) select the "Security" tab. 18) click the "Advanced" button 19) select the "Permissions" tab. 20) click the "Change Permissions..." button 21) on the "Advanced Security Settings for <folder name>" click the "Add..." button 22) In the "Select User or Group" dialog, under "Enter the object name to select", type your name 23) click the "Check Names" button. Hopefully it should match to the actual account. 24) click OK. 25) On the "Permission Entry for test perms" dialog, select the "Allow" checkbox from the "Full Control" row. Click OK. 26) back on the "Advanced Security Settings for <folder name>" make sure that your user name is visible in the "Permissions Entries" section 27) now make sure that the checkbox "Replace all child permissions with inheritable permissions from this object" is selected. 28) click OK. click YES. 29) close everything again. You should be ok after this point. Some comments about usability: This procedure takes more than 30 interactions to complete. It is not currently documented as a procedure anywhere in the online help (it should at least be listed under a howto, preferrably with the header "Restoring permissions on external files or after an clean operating system install".) However, it would be even better if a utility were available to do this for you in one step. (The pointers and refs above were used to assemble this list of steps. I rewrote it because the sources were sometimes terse or skipped steps that makes it difficult for other readers to follow the procedure.)-lk