NTFS Permissions Problems

Cainy · 07 Jan 2021

Good Evening tenforum,

I have a very bad problem with a (or better two) windows installation(s) and it's NTFS permissions.. First I am gonna provide you with all the info and problems I face:

The story:
My dad's pc was very slow on windows 7 on an HDD and so I thought I'd install him a fresh and clean win10 installation on a brand new 512GB SSD.. I unplugged the old HDD and installed win10 on the SSD by using a Bootstick created with MediaCreationTool. Up to this point, everything looked very good and windows 10 booted perfectly and it does so every time. Now I booted again and replugged the old HDD because he wanted to access the data on the old drive while using his new installation.

And here comes the big problem..:
He had no access on his C Drive (SSD, Win10) and also no access on his D Drive (HDD, Win7) up to the point where he has problems starting programs, writing data in specific directories and altering specific files. I cannot say whether or not there is any distinct pattern in the data he cant access but there are multiple.

Things I checked myself:

1. If you boot from the HDD (win7) you have the same issues.
2. The account on win10 is an administrator
3. If you unplug the HDD and boot Windows 10, you have the same issues.
4. I tried altering the owner of the whole C: and D: Drive to PCNAME/Administrator and have the same issues.
--- When I try this, I get a error message for all the files I cant alter the permission on:

NTFS Permissions Problems-external-content.duckduckgo.com.png

(This is not a screenshot of the PC i talk about, because you probably wouldnt understand the language but it has the exact meaning)

So yes, I tried this "workaround" of changing the owner from TrustedInstaller to PCNAME/Administrator of the drive and the problem persists.

At this point, I have no clue what to do next and I am pleased to hear your opinions.
Thanks, John

dalchina · 07 Jan 2021

Hi, the impression I get is that use of the HDD corrupted the Win 10 installation.

Some possible ways forward:
- get a caddy, put the HDD in that, connect it as a USB disk and then try recovering data having reinstalled Win 10.
(I'm assuming you are talking about a desktop and an internal disk).
- Boot using a live boot disk (which is unlikely to be corrupted) and recover any data needed to a separate disk
- Test the HDD - for integrity and viruses etc

Samuria · 07 Jan 2021

If you change the c drive from trusted installer to admin you have bricked the Windows your only option is to wipe the drive and do a clean install

Cainy · 07 Jan 2021

Thanks for your opinions..

The problem is that reinstalling windows 10 is not really an option because we cant lose all the already installed programs (this was a long work of hours because there are a lot of programs that need plenty of setup to do)

But I think that something related to this old installation caused the problem as well.

dalchina · 07 Jan 2021

You don't want to clean install. Very understandable.

Here's how you should have been protecting yourself. Again and again and again the routine use of disk imaging is recommended by members.

As soon as you can after installing Win 10, create your first disk image.
a. Make configuration changes, install some programs, keeping a simple record.
b. Create a differential disk image.
Keep repeating a, b. until a build upgrade or in-place repair install, when you start all over again.

Then when something goes badly wrong- restore a disk image of all your Windows partition or any other partition you've chosen to image.

Great time saver.

E.g. Macrium Reflect (free- paid) + large enough external storage for image files.

Samuria · 07 Jan 2021

If you search our forums for People who messed permission of trusted installer in the end the only option was wipe the drive and do a clean install. As pointed out the use of disk images gives you a roll back option