Resetting folder permissions XP security settings

MoRT489 · 3 Oct 2009 at 18:31

Hello OS security gurus!

I was setting up a new user account on my PC at home (cos a temp will be using it for a while) and i have locked myself out of all my drives except XP!

I have Windows 7 on drive C, XP on D, Games on F and Media on G. I passworded my account on W7 and XP and set up a limited user account in XP for the temp. As I didnt want the temp to have access to any of my other harddrives i went into the security in each one (in XP as administrator) and removed Users from the permissions in "Advanced security settings".

OK, so now even logged on as my User account which has full admin rights in both XP and W7 i get "X:\ is not accessible. Access is denied." So i selected all drives and right click security, it tells me they all have different permission levels so i can reset security permissions. THis had no effect but to keep me locked out.

Is the best way to get permissions back to grant myself ownership of the folders? Or is there another method i should use to reset security?

TIA

marc2003 · 3 Oct 2009 at 18:41

take ownership and then make sure your account and SYSTEM have full control over everything.

theheyes · 3 Oct 2009 at 19:02

Just be aware that if those drives aren't encrypted it would take about 5 minutes to get to them with a live CD.

MoRT489 · 3 Oct 2009 at 19:49

Thanks marc, that has worked for Drive D, will wait to hear back from Heyes before doing the rest.

Heyes, not sure what u mean. The drives arent encrypted, what live CD?

Edit: Marc, when u say account and system what do u mean (i'm new to setting this stuff up)? I assume this:

My PC is called CDHR but my Account is MoRTiCuS. Previoulsy there was other stuff in the list like administrator, user maybe 5 things, then nothing and now only CDHR/MoRTiCuS after adding ownership.

Edit 2: This is what the XP drive looks like (didnt change the settings on this one):

MoRT489 · 3 Oct 2009 at 21:48

OK, think i have the hang of it but should the owner be "MoRTiCuS (CDHR\MoRTiCuS)" or "Administrators (CDHR\Administrators)"

theheyes · 4 Oct 2009 at 10:46

creed said:
Heyes, not sure what u mean. The drives arent encrypted, what live CD?

A live CD is an operating system, usually a Linux distro, that boots and runs off a CD.

You can download one from here for example and burn it to disc:

http://www.ubuntu.com/getubuntu/download

If you have physical access to the PC itself, it is quite trivial to get it to boot from the CD (it may even be configured to boot automatically). Once the operating system has loaded it will give you access to the entire contents of the hard drive regardless of what Windows permissions you have set.

Try it yourself.