Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Gain control of those "Access Denied Folders"

This is a short guide to help gain ownership of a folder that give you those annoying "Access denied" messages on your own system. This will reassign the ownership of the blocked folder giving you complete access to whatever you want, giving control back to you!

This guide was developed because even though I had administrator rights, I couldn't get access to certain folders. It was really annoying because I owned this system and Windows would not even let me access certain folders on my own system giving me an "access denied" message.

This guide will also help you gain access to other people's folders on your own system (such as My Documents or even profiles).

This guide is meant for Windows XP Systems. I'm not sure about the result or steps with Vista.

1) Log on to the computer with an account that is setup as an Administrator. If you are using XP Home, you must boot into safe mode, and then log on to an account that has Admin access in order to access the security tab.

2) If you are using xp pro, the first thing you must do is disable Simple File Sharing. In a folder menu, click Tools, then Folder Options.

3) In the "View" tab, scroll down until you see "Use Simple File Sharing (Recommended)". Turn that off. Then close the "Folder Options" window.

4) Right-click the folder that you want to take control of, and then click Properties. You should see 4 tabs that say "general", "sharing", "Security", and "Customize". Click the Security tab.

5) Next, click the "Advanced" tab, and then click the Owner tab.

6) In the user list, click the user name or you want have access to the folder, or click Administrator if you are logged in as the Administrator. If you want to take ownership of the contents of that folder you originally selected, click the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.

7) Next, click OK, and then select Yes when you receive the message:

"You do not have permission to read the contents of directory folder name. Do you want to replace the directory permissions with permissions granting you Full Control?"

Click "Yes". This will transfer ownership of the folder over to whomever you selected.


Gain Control Of Those 'Access Denied' Folders - Celebrity bloopers here

130 comments:

Anonymous said...

This doesn't work if you have removed "SYSTEM" from the users list.

Beakerz said...

so sexy.

Anonymous said...

I followed this procedure on my Vista machine, and was still unable to access certain files. Regardless if I was booting to Vista or XP, the Vista windows files remain inaccessable... Damn you microsoft

Anonymous said...

This kicks ass! I should have known to do this in the first place, but for some reason couldn't pull my head out of my ass. I recently replaced my mother board and when I reinstalled my OS I lost access to everything on my hard drive that was protected. Luckily I wasn't able to delete the files either, so now I can go and retreive them finally. Thanks for a great blog.

Anonymous said...

For the love of God, thank you for posting this. I recently restored my system from a backup to a separate folder and I couldn't get in due to the old system's security settings. All fixed now.

Anonymous said...

A faster/simpler way is simply to pop a knoppix disc in the cdrom, reboot and copy the folders you don't have access to to a folder you do have access to. Knoppix (and I'm sure other *nix distro's) ignore all acls. There is also a dos command called cacls that you can use to manually set permissions.

Unknown said...

To do this on XPHome, you have to boot into safe mode as an administrator.

support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Austin said...

one suggestion is a tool called Unlocker.

http://ccollomb.free.fr/unlocker/

Unknown said...

thank you forever

Marc said...

Doing this will reset the file permissions on the folders as well- to do this and keep the original file permissions (such as a home drive situation) you need to use the xcacls command line tool, which is one of the powertools commands that you can get from MS. I used this to reset the ownership on ~250 folders on home drive, each with unique file permissions that I did not want to have to go and reset manually. The syntax is a little tricky to get correct.

Anonymous said...

Be careful never ever to do this on system folders, or a folder like "Users" ("Documents and Settings" on XP) or to a folder belonging to another user.

If you do, you could totally hose your system or other user accounts.

If you don't know what you're doing with file permissions, then don't mess with them.

Anonymous said...

This worked well on an XP machine. Thank You.

Anonymous said...

Brilliant can now acces files form crashed computer. didnt work first time I tried didnt get "You do not have permission" etc message, but ticked replace owner on subcontainers and objects and it then worked like a dream. Thanks very much.

Anonymous said...

thankyou thankyou thankyou

Anonymous said...

I'm having an amazing issue where I deleted a user account, which had over 5GB of data in the My Docs folder, and then Windows failed to delete the profile when I had specified that I wanted it deleted. Now from my only admin account, that profile is denied and nothing will gain access to it. All I want is to delete the 5GB of data - stuck in nowhere. I've tried recreating the account - to no avail, XP keeps making sub profiles "USERNAME.COMPNAME" instead. XP such junk. I'll be trying to manipulate this theory, thanks for the idea.

Anonymous said...

Charlie, you are the best. I finally was able to open the damn "System Volume Information" folder, where 5 trojans were residing, and kill the motherfuckers. Thanks a lot baby. You made my day.
Vladi

Anonymous said...

Charlie, you are the best. I finally was able to open the damn "System Volume Information" folder, where 5 trojans were residing, and kill the motherfuckers. Thanks a lot baby. You made my day.
Vladi

Anonymous said...

I forgot to mention - it works perfectly on Vista.
Vladi

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU!!! I have not used it yet, but I will stop hating windows as much now

Zac said...

thanks man, helped a bunch

Anonymous said...

Thank you SOOOOO MUCH!
you saved my ass.
my pc crashed and had to reinstall xp. My 3rd year University project was locked out with the access denied message and ive managed to get everything back.
PHEW..
Thanks again!

Anonymous said...

Thanks, works a treat!

I went through two unsuccessful installs of Windows Vista (the third time it worked) which resulted in two windows installations on one partition (ie 20 gb of junk)and this really helps!

Anonymous said...

Works! Was a big help retrieving data from a corrupted system. Put notebook HDD in an enclosure and connected via USB to another system. Thanks

Anonymous said...

Thanks v much! Worked for me...

Anonymous said...

If I hadn't come across this post I might have become completely deranged and reformatted my hard drive. Well not likely but the thought crossed my mind. I was able to go merrily about my business after I read your post. So If i could drink I would raise a glass in your honor at the next toasting...
all the best, bogusAurelius

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much I love you I want your babies, seriously you really saved my skin. I was also serious about the babies, you got good genes.

Anonymous said...

My headache is gone. Thanks to you. I did some reconfiguration on the machine and only to find out later I cannot access folder. My boss was about to have my head, but you saved my life. Nuff Respect!!!

Anonymous said...

My headache is gone. Thanks to you. I did some reconfiguration on the machine and only to find out later I cannot access folder. My boss was about to have my head, but you saved my life. Nuff Respect!!!

Anonymous said...

Finally someone explained it well. Even the tutorial on Microsoft website forgets to tell that if you are using XP Home, you MUST reboot on SAFE MODE as administrator to follow the full instructions.
Thanks a lot!

Anonymous said...

This method, however, is a trapdoor method, and cannot be used to obtain data from a drive that will, eventually, be returned to service. Once the ownership has been taken, it cannot be returned, and if the drive on which this method is being used has only one user, that user will be unable to access their own data or log on to the computer from which the drive was originally taken.

Anonymous said...

Thank you so very much, this has helped me alot!!!
I don't know what's going on but I'm slowly getting
control back from my Windows possessed computer.
I AM THE ONLY USER ON MY COMPUTER!!!
TO MY COMPUTER I AM GOD! NOT WINDOWS!
I was denied access to my 2nd harddrive,
unable to modify, delete, or even open my folders.
Somehow, these Windows updates have added
several new users to my computer, of which
I have to compete for access to my files.
Not sure which "users" to delete in the
security permissions panel, but I'm glad
that I can now get to my stuff.
Thankx!

uğur önder said...

Thank you it worked for me. It was bugging me for weeks. Finally it is gone. Thank you so much.

Anonymous said...

U R A GoD

Anonymous said...

This is Brilliant, but i have a small problem, one of my users attempted to deny administrator access to his home folder, but locked himself out aswell... *sigh*, he is now unable to log onto that PC as it will not allow him to load his profile, I have given him a spare pc to work on, but need to recover the work in his home folder, this is were my problem starts, I cant even see his home folder to right click it. Any suggestions welcome, Thx

Anonymous said...

Disregard my last post. This worked better than expected, ure a star. ^^

Anonymous said...

Many thanks for this! I had a strange system crash the other day, had to re-install XP and of course all the files within my older username folder were locked; various software developers decided to push all the saved files to My Documents so I was very scared I had lost 3 months of 3d files! I tried going through the normal help procedure supplied by Windows's site but it was still blocking. Fortunately, your tutorial crashed through XP's security and saved 3 months of my life!
silentasylum.com

Anonymous said...

Omg dude you are the man. I was moving stuff around in one on my drives and one folder went into another and i couldent copy it out of the one folder because it kept saying access Denied.

Followed the instrustions and it worked! thx

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot. You have saved my soul. I had a lot of important documents in this hard drive. Holger /Sweden

Anonymous said...

I didn't think this would work. BUT IT DID! You rule man.

I was having this crappy problem where folders were getting created in my home directory by programs that I would install and then no one seemed to have access to them. Nothing worked except this tip.

Anonymous said...

Oh thank you thank you THANK YOU!

Couldn't figure out why I didn't have a security tab, until you pointed out the "simple filesharing" bit.

You rule!

thadk said...

this didn't work for me to help fix the permissions set by another install of windows, all you get is access denied errors despite being an administrator, these two commands did though:

WHERE %1 is the folder you're trying to fix (easy cut/paste into batch file).

takeown /f %1 /r /d y
icacls %1 /grant administrators:F /t

source:http://objectsharp.com/cs/blogs/dan/archive/2007/02/07/reset-permissions-for-existing-folders-on-a-new-vista-install.aspx

cheers!

Anonymous said...

Ooo I need Vista!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so very much! You don't know how much this means to me!

Unknown said...

YOUR THE BEST !!!!!!!!!THANK YOU VERY MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Tobes said...

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This is exactly what I was looking for.

-T

Anonymous said...

thank you so much, i have had an old desktop with 5 gigs of photography work that i have finally now been able to access after my computer crashed. thanks!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so very much, this worked the first time for me. Used it on Windows XP. Desktop Support Techician, Houston, TX.

Anonymous said...

Q6RdAo You have a talant! Write more!

Anonymous said...

Thank you VERY much! You saved me a couple of weeks of downloading it all over again.

Anonymous said...

You are the best! I could finally retrieve data from my old user account from my other hdd which couldn't boot up. If there was a donate button on your site, it would be down from all the traffic of gratefulness.

Anonymous said...

fbNrkI The best blog you have!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much. It worked on XP Home.

Anonymous said...

Another happy customer... rebuild XP on new disk, could not get into user dir on old drive.

Anonymous said...

You are a brilliant star. I struggled for the past 11 months. I couldn't delete or move the file because of "access denied" errors. I searched the whole internet but could not get help. Only until I met your tip on your website. God bless you. If you were a presidential candidate, I would vote for you. thanks once more. Manyane Chidi (Pretoria, South Africa).

Anonymous said...

i unlocked the folder,which contaied pictures,and now it says preview not available....which means i have access to the folder and its files..but it seems that all the data is lost,so it's actually pretty useless..

Anonymous said...

OMG YOU ARE MY HERO!!!!

I HAVE BEEN TRYING TO FIGURE THIS OUT FOR MONTHS!!!

THANK YOU!!!!

Anonymous said...

Thank you so much for puting this on your blog this has helped me get my files back.
I can repay you with this www.supersilversam.webs.com
has a lot of content in there.

Anonymous said...

Thank you, Thank you, thank you..... I remember doing this in a networking class I took a few years back. I just wish I had not wasted a week searching for and using data recovery software. I can now pull files off a crashed hard drive, then reformat it.

Unknown said...

You saved me from having to swaping out my old HD just to get my resume off of it at almost midnight. Thanks!

Anonymous said...

A life saver, my laptop failed, I connected the HDD to a SATA to USB bridge but could not access "My Documents" no matter what I tried... I was almost giving up until i stumbled on this article!!!
Thank you very much!

Anonymous said...

You saved my ass. Thank you so much.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for the painless instruction -- tried this with other step by steps and didn't work -- your clarity was a winner!!

Anonymous said...

It worked perfectly for me. :D
I´ve learned a lot . THANKS

Anonymous said...

You are my hero, I just recovered hundreds of priceless pictures from my old pictures folder. Props from Wisconsin.

Anonymous said...

Fantastic walk-through, thanks very much =)

NostradamusZen said...

Thanks Matey!

Nightmare solved.

NostradamusZen said...

Like I said, brilliant!

Anonymous said...

I really appreciate the help!

This was very annoying for me as well.

I had to re-install my windows xp because of corrupted files.
During the re-installation I must of accidentally set a name which differed from the account name on my original windows setup. Therefore after installation I was unable to gain access to that folder which contained all the files for the original account. Similar to the problem displayed on your video. It was VERY annoying. At first I thought I had lost all my files(because I had a LOT in the My Documents folder for that user) because it displayed that there was 0 kb of files in that folder(properties). I am so glad I found this video. You wouldn't believe the number of things I tried to gain access because I was POSITIVE I didn't delete files in the folder through setup. The last thing I tried was very similar to what you do in this video. Except I did it with Vista on another computer. Vista has a program called Security Editor that will do this task automatically for you if you go try to access a folder which you don't have permissions to and if you are an administrator for that pc. Well at least the version I used did(note that the hard-drive was attached to a laptop running unknown version of Vista via external drive(set as a slave)). But unfortunately when I brought the HD back to my computer the lock was still enabled for XP. SO I followed the instructions on this video, which is basically the manual way that the prog in Vista does it, except for XP.

Once again thanks for the help. I did somehow manage to open the folder account before this and was somehow only able to unlock 1 folder through (ironically)enabling the folder as a private folder...don't ask me how but it allowed me to access the locked folder...but as for the rest of the folders in that account folder this option was grayed out.

Anonymous said...

Cheers for the help. I've just managed to save my girlfriend's dissertation proposal from a dead laptop.
Thanks again.

xxx

Anonymous said...

This worked perfectly in safe mode for Vista Ultimate Pro version, thank you!

Anonymous said...

Thank You sooooo much! Worked perfect for me, thanks for making it easy.
Basically i had installed XP on a new drive and was trying to access a folder on the old xp drive but couldn't because i didnt boot up through that. Thanks again man much appreciated.

Anonymous said...

Thank you! Thank you, thank you, thank you, thank you! You helped me out SO MUCH!

Anonymous said...

I am so Happy
Actually this was a shared folder having a central location of Data in all office

Anonymous said...

Wow, thank you so much for
this guide. Worked like a charm
I now have my Quickbooks Company files back from a crashed system :P

Anonymous said...

thanks....

Anonymous said...

You saved my ass....you rock!

Anonymous said...

BADASS

Anonymous said...

All my precious files came back to papa.. thanks a lot!

Anonymous said...

Excellent solution! Have a client that had about 3 years of info in "my documents" (and never backed it up). System hiccupped and ended up in my lap after she got the "access denied" message. She's now learned the importance of doing backups...

Anonymous said...

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!!

Anonymous said...

This is a perfect information thank you mate. It works great on Vista Home Premium. Thank you!

Anonymous said...

Thanks a lot! it worked

Anonymous said...

Thank you, corrupted windows, removed drive and installed as a secondary drive in another pc. Changed ownership and now can retrieve all my work.

Thanks a lot

Anonymous said...

Excellent solution!Thanks a lot! it worked

Anonymous said...

Dude,

As others said, you are awesome!

Thanks a bunch. This recently happened on my system and after trying to restore and put Windows XP on again, it just would not boot. So I got a new hard drive and discovered that the data was still there, but not accessible.

With the help of the internet I found plenty of solutions similar to yours. However, yours was the best step-by-step guide by far! Also, the video is cool! :)

Thanks alot!

Andy

P.S. You might want to consider putting up a donation button! I bet people would donate!

Anonymous said...

That's a lot of work. Here is a free drag-and-drop utility that does it for you on XP and Vista.

Anonymous said...

Worked like a "charm" first time, no probs.
Win XP Home sp3

Many many thanks. :)

Anonymous said...

What about gaining access to my user account (which is password protected) on an external hdd?

My other laptop won't boot so I hooked up my hdd to an external one. When I goto my user account folder, I (oh course) get "access denied". The folder also says that it has nothing in it.I had had that problem before not to long ago where I didn't have access to a folder and it said there was nothing in it but I had fixed it, but I'm still unable to fix my other laptop.

CiscoGon said...

MAny Many Thank You, OMG I thought my sister was going to kill me. because i couldnt figure out why i couldnt access her folder to recover her work. I manage to use you technique and it saved the day on top of that it started snowing when i gave her the good news. that recover it and she was much more calm.

Anonymous said...

Well done! I tried it on my Medion Akoya netbook after changing from Spanish to English XP. Worked first time. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks very much man. Just what I needed

Anonymous said...

Before recommending or installing Unlocker 1.87, it would probably be a good idea to do further research.

http://it.toolbox.com/blogs/paytonbyrd/beware-unlocker-187-26919

http://www.threatexpert.com/report.aspx?md5=ce49d389a9b30c1a0dbfadfbc1299136

My firewall prevented the unreported (secret or hidden?) installation of ebayshortcuts, an executable file. It has been reported that the program tries to connect to www.adon-demand.de and download additional files.

Even using Revo Uninstaller (a freeware utility that does a good job of removing entries from the registry and deleting files and folders sometimes left behind), the program is installed in such a way that some of the files could not be deleted. In my case I got an "Access Denied" error message. It took booting into Safe Mode and using DOS commands to delete the files and directory.

Install at your own risk! (Thank you, Online Armor!!!)

Anonymous said...

i followed these steps on my XP machine, but its still unable to access the files

LeoXamine said...

Does anyone know what would happen if...instead of gaining control of System Volume Information...you applied that procedure to drive C? Or is it the same thing in the end anyways?

Charlie said...

The System Volume Information contains all your 'System Restore' data. If you are trying to shrink that size down, just turn off the System Restore. If you apply the permission to all of drive c, all it will is change the owner to you. It won't affect too much (as least I don't think it will).

LeoXamine said...

Thanks for the reply charlie..it's something I have wanted to know..but not exactly something I want to try..at least just now. My paranoid vision has my operating system -once doing so many things automatically- suddenly asking me for permission on everything.
By the way..you've had the best blog on this I've seen..sure wish I had read it a few weeks ao.

Charlie said...

Glad I could help you with the system a little bit. :)

Anonymous said...

My GOD ! You save my life !
What a brilliant think !

I've even asked to my friend (one of Microsoft software development team), and he even can't answer my problem.

Thank you, I really appreciate this very much !!!

Anonymous said...

my prob was a bit diffrnt den ol abuv...
i jst secured a folder thru dos givn +s +h +a attributes n i, unlike others i coudn see the folder...

then saw yur post, n thought der has to b a way for mines too...

so as my folder was hidden, i went to the security tab of d whole bloody drive... n guess wht... i smiled n got da data back...
thanks a lot man.. u dont know how imp was that...

Unknown said...

Hah-lay-F!@$#%-ing-loooo-ya! This post sure has withstood the test of time. And it saved my sorry butt. Thank you!

Nordlander said...

Thanks a million for this post!

It really saved me big time - needed to copy My Documents folders from the harddrive I had removed from a crashed computer.

Now all is good. May sunshine always brighten your life...

Unknown said...

as the user from the last post said, thanks a million, i was in the same situation, thanks a lot...

Brian - Toronto said...

BRILLIANT!!! I was purging my system of viruses and adwarez when everything was said and done I logged in to XP only to be immediately kicked out! Crap!! I spent 2 days trying to find out how to get control of my PC to no avail. I decided I would put my drives in an enclosure and connect to my laptop to transfer files and then reinstall windows. I was out of luck on 1 particular drive because I encrypted it. Your blog saved my butt as I was able to get around the stupid "Access denied" message and re-own my files!!

I was literally 5 minutes away from giving up and reformatting my drive!! Thank you so much, this was an excellent post unlike the numerous dead ends I have tried.

Thanks again!
Brian

PS. It was good but not "having babies with you" good!

chris said...

excellent - just what I was looking for!

ufcscom said...

Thank you! Thank you! Thank you! Still a great post! :)

Satyrlire said...

One word : Thanks

Anonymous said...

Used this tonight to gain access to a neighbor's external hard drive. Worked like a charm. Thanks.

Anonymous said...

Hey, thank you very much!!!! it really help my boyfriend's pc n__n
THANKS!!!
Now it's time to format (6)

Jake said...

Thanks for this, I was about to give up and reformat my brothers laptop drive. He owes you lots lol!

Unknown said...

Man... you saved my ass! Thank You! Thank You! ... now I can work on my files and take my plane on time! I didn't know how the heck I was going to do it under such a tight line.

Anonymous said...

I owe you my image

Anonymous said...

thaanks! this really helped.
i used this
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421
and this site.
thanks again

http://www.pchell.com/support/safemode.shtml

Anonymous said...

I tried this -- XP Home SP3 junk files on a virtual drive partition -- and changed the folder permissions OK, but still couldn't delete the junk folders. Then I changed them to "share this folder" and "allow network users to change my files" and blam! Deleted them right away.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for a great blog.

Unknown said...

Great job! luckily you have posted this thread before i eagerly format my HDD thanks alot!

Anonymous said...

Thanks so much for posting this. You are a lifesaver. I get to look like a hero to my friend for saving her data.

Anonymous said...

help me, help me! I was recently clearing up my HDD to pass my computer on to a friend. After I organized all of my files I thought back to files that I had lost when I hid them. I had hid some files in a random folder off of the C Drive about 3 sub directories back. One day I was unable to access the folder, getting the error message everyone here faced. I noticed the space on the HDD was still occupied, I just couldn't access it. I basically forgot about it up until this point when I finally searched for a fix. I followed these steps and was able to gain access to the long lost files.... But while the folders and file names were in-tact, none of the files were usable, everything was completely defunct. Pictures and videos that completely won't open, they're there but they just won't work after performing this method.

Charlie said...

What you are describing is data corruption. That does not have to do anything with changing the permissions of the files. I don't know what else to considering it seems that the data could be scrambled. *shrug*

Joey said...

Thanks for the reply Charlie. I have been searching around and haven't found an answer yet. I'm not overly concerned, just would like to recover the data if I could. I was concerned that it might be corrupt, back when I was younger and had lost the files, I thought that they were lost for good... I was excited to be able to get into the folder and see all of the files and names. I tried to copy an image over to another folder and it gave me an error message saying "Cannot copy: Access is Denied" continued with "Make sure the disk is not full or write-protected and that the file is not currently in use." I'm not sure if that has anything to do with the changes I made to be able to view the files originally, or if the write-protection on it is just really screwed up. Appreciate the help

Tim Shirk said...

Nice! Worked great to let me delete a found.000 folder off my old system drive. I did have to add current OSes Administrators group as Full Control afterwards to be able to delete them all as there was no accounts setup on the folders with permissions at all even with ownership changed.

Anonymous said...

OMG! Thank u, thank u, thank u, a thousand times THANK U!
I had a XP installation go blue-screen on me and couldn't gain access 2 my old 'user' folder as I had been forced to install another copy of XP on the same partition.
I tried ur tip but following MS's own website but it didn't say to tick the box at the bottom. I'd all but given up hope until I found this! Documents safe now thanx 2u. Must now save up for a Mac and do more backing up in the meantime! :)

Charlie said...

I have to disable comments because I a spammer is attempting to add comments of no value. I will add it back at a later date..sorry

Unknown said...

Your profile might have been corrupted. windows then creates a new account with yoour name but using the 'all user' default settings. check the folder documents and settings on the system drive. your old account settings, Desktop and documents are mostlikely still in there, just the folder has been renamed.

Today's subliminal thought is: 'Calm down ... it's only ones and zeros.'

thimal said...

thank you very much :D

Bex said...

My hard drive was recently corrupted, and after I got a new one I was denied access to my folder that had ALL of my personal belongings in it. We're talking songs, documents, movies, etc. In addition, no one could help me because the folder claimed to have no files in it! After a couple months of failed attempts I came across your method and it worked. So in short, you are a hero. Thank you.

KIRAN said...

life save..!

NiMsAj said...

Yes! It worked thank you so much! BIG BIG HELP!!!

The Sanky Style said...

Thank you very much buddy

Anonymous said...

Good job man you help me out man

Jmartien.world said...

Thanks a lot.....You save my 104 GB of very imp. data.....Thank you man...