Cannot Access HDD No Administrator Rights

I have a Windows 10 system with a Spanned Logical drive consisting of two HDD's.


Recently, I had to change my user profile to a new one (the original profile became corrupt).
I reconfigured the new user as the main user with administrator rights (using the hidden administrator account) and deleted the old user profile.
I transferred the default user location for videos to my spanned drive (K:)
I transferred other user locations to my data-drive (E:)

Now, I am getting a variery of errors, linked to access of the E:- en K:-drives. As an example, iTunes reports an error that I have no privilliges to write to the (music-)folder. When I launch iTunes 'as administrator' there is no problem.

When transferring files to the K-drive Windows Explorer kicks in UAC and asks for permission every time. It is also noticeable slower doing file transfers.

I read about 'taking ownership' (takeown....), which could solve this issue? I changed ownership of my E:-drive to myself, but that did not resolve the issue. I used the properties window of the drive to accomplish that.

Can I change ownership for a spanned drive as well? Currently, the owner of the drive is SYSTEM. Should I use the line command Takeown instead of using the Properties window?

Any advice is very much appreciated

Karl Vonmonckl

Hi Vonmonckl,

As much as you may like to resolve the issue on your own accord, without knowledge of the security system it’s best you use a tool, such as the reg tweak in the linked tutorial, to assist you on this or you’ll dig yourself into a bowl of frustration.

How to Add 'Take Ownership' to Context Menu in Windows 10

If instead you want an explanation for, or insist to have the problem resolved in a manual way and would like guidance on doing this, you can upload a snapshot of the security settings of the items you are having access problems with using the below tutorial, though, don’t expect to get help fast this way.

NTFS Permissions — View and Post

@Pyprohly

Thanks for your advice. I have already browsed through the Tool you mentioned. Unfortunately my Windows language is Dutch. My core question however is if I can safely take ownership for a Spanned Logical File.

Ok, Sitrep. Sorry to trouble you guys again.

I have run takeown /f [drive] /a /r /d Y successfully. However, the problem still persists.

I have added the context menu 'Take Ownership' provided on this forum. When running it on a single file it provides a 'success' answer. If I run it on a Directory it does not run, nor on a full drive. See enclosed error messages.

Error message when trying to take ownership of a directory:


Error Message when trying to take ownership of a drive (running it on the root of the E-drive (E:)

Vonmonckl said:

I have run takeown /f [drive] /a /r /d Y successfully. However, the problem still persists.

Taking ownership doesn’t grant you access to an item. It only allows you to configure its permissions if the permission settings had denied you from doing so previously. Taking ownership is sometimes even unnecessary.

Vonmonckl said:

Error message when trying to take ownership of a directory:

Sorry, it would seem that Brink had not translated the file properly. If you would like a functioning copy of Take Ownership for your locale, please return to him.

Vonmonckl said:

Error Message when trying to take ownership of a drive (running it on the root of the E-drive (E:)

Hmm. Oh. That error message highlights a deeper problem with the Take Ownership tweak. I’ll be taking this issue up to Brink.


Not to worry, we can do without the Take Ownership tweak. Vonmonckl, because I’m not Dutch, I’ll need a different method of viewing the drive’s permissions, if you could go back to the second link in my first post and…

Actually scrap it. I know what the default permissions for a drive is supposed to look like. I’ll just have you to reset the E drive’s permission settings from a script if that’s fine.


Download and run the attached script. Select ‘E:\’ and click ‘OK’. This will restore the permissions on ‘E:\’ with that of the default settings for an NTFS external drive. See if this remedies your issue.

@Pyprohli,

Thanks for the great support, but.... again no success. However, it has generated a new piece of information. I now have the strong impression that the issue is directly related with moving the user media-files. The only directories which have access issues are Pictures, Music and Videos.

After creating my new user, I moved all user files (except for ProgramData) to the E:drive, an excercise, I have done numerous times. But for the first time I also changed the parameters in the Windows 10 configuration interface: Configuration-System-Storage. Is that the problem?
When right-clicking the respective folders (Pictures, Music, Video, I notice that rename and delete are Administrator Only, while the other folders on the E-drive do not have that limitation.

Vonmonckl said:

I now have the strong impression that the issue is directly related with moving the user media-files. The only directories which have access issues are Pictures, Music and Videos.
[...]
When right-clicking the respective folders (Pictures, Music, Video, I notice that rename and delete are Administrator Only, while the other folders on the E-drive do not have that limitation.

Ah, so it would appear that the source items are the source of the problem and not E drive.

Would you be able to do option C of step 2 in NTFS Permissions — View and Post, Option Three

Vonmonckl said:

But for the first time I also changed the parameters in the Windows 10 configuration interface: Configuration-System-Storage. Is that the problem?

Wouldn’t be.