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I recently installed a second drive into the PC running Windows 10 Pro. The drive is used for data. I usually work as a non-admin user. I have a couple of top-level folders on that drive (D:) and use read/write data in those folders.

I now needed to create another top-level folder (say, D:\new-folder). As the non-admin user I couldn't do it. When I checked permission on the top-level drive, I can see that my non-admin user only has read/execute permission on the drive.

So I logged in as the local Administrator account - but I can't even read the top level drive. I can't even see the used space on it. As soon as I try to click on it in explorer, I get "Access denied".

If I start powershell or command prompt "run as admin" and attempt to cd into drive D:, I get "access denied" error.

I can probably copy all the data out and then re-format the drive, but there's over a terabyte of data and I don't have anywhere to copy it to. I cannot afford to loose this data at the moment. As a local administrator, no matter what I do, I always get "Access denied". This applies to takeown, get-acl, set-acl, etc.

When I log in as a non-admin user, I can view the content of the drive and I can view the current permissions on the drive, which include "Full control" for members of the "Aministrators" group.

How can I get the Administrator to access the drive and make the relevant changes? Note that I have full administrator access to the PC and can make any changes I need.

UPDATE: per suggestion from another place, here's the output of get-acl:

Owner          : NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM
AccessToString : NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users Allow  -536805376
                 NT AUTHORITY\Authenticated Users Allow  Modify, Synchronize
                 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Allow  FullControl
                 NT AUTHORITY\SYSTEM Allow  268435456
                 BUILTIN\Administrators Allow  268435456
                 BUILTIN\Administrators Allow  FullControl
                 BUILTIN\Users Allow  ReadAndExecute, Synchronize
                 BUILTIN\Users Allow  -1610612736
Aleks G
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  • @PimpJuiceIT Thanks. Both as admin and non-admin, I get "Access denied" for the root of drive D: As non-admin, it does changes some of the files under D: but not all. As admin, it doesn't even try, because it can't read the content of D: – Aleks G Sep 09 '20 at 12:25
  • So command elevated as administrator command line on either of those accounts, what happens if you run takeown /a /r /d Y /f "D:\"? – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Sep 09 '20 at 12:43
  • @PimpJuiceIT Comes back with ERROR: Access is denied. - and nothing else – Aleks G Sep 09 '20 at 15:06
  • That’s interesting. I would also try chkdsk D: /f from an admin command prompt. – Appleoddity Sep 09 '20 at 15:12
  • Both admin and not admin chkdsk result in the same error: Access Denied as you do not have sufficient privileges – Aleks G Sep 09 '20 at 15:17
  • Furthermore, see the section I wrote about here labeled "Further Notable Items": https://superuser.com/questions/1462176/two-files-will-not-delete-from-hdd/1462392#1462392 ... Something is either corrupt file system wise or something has something inuse/locked and thus that's what's up. – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Sep 09 '20 at 15:17
  • I suspect that something is off with the fildsystem. Running takeown /F D:\ as user nt authority\system results in the same message "Access is denied" – Aleks G Sep 09 '20 at 15:24
  • Linux won't help, as the disk is encrypted with bitlocker – Aleks G Sep 09 '20 at 15:47
  • Maybe bitlocker has something to do with it based on how you configured the drive encryption, etc. Perhaps you can bitlocker decrypt, reboot, and then try to take ownership. I guess you tried manually taking ownership per something like this it does not work either.... https://www.isumsoft.com/windows-10/take-ownership-of-a-file-folder-drive.html – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Sep 09 '20 at 17:19
  • @AleksG - You should disable BitLocker protection, see if the problem remains, and then enable BitLocker protection. What you describe is abnormal. The default permissions on an external non-system drive is universal read/write access. The fact you are getting an access denied message indicates sever file system corruption. – Ramhound Sep 09 '20 at 17:44
  • @Ramhound it isn't an external drive. It's a second internal drive – Aleks G Sep 09 '20 at 19:16
  • Can you add the output of whoami /groups to your question. When logged in as the administrator. – Peter Hahndorf Sep 09 '20 at 19:29
  • @AleksG - What I said applies to non-system drives unless you specifically changed it. I still suspect file system corruption. – Ramhound Sep 09 '20 at 20:44

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