I have been having a problem with my external hard drive, I think it is about to die, so I am in the process of copying all my files/folders to my wifes computer, which has a much bigger internal harddrive than my computer, but I have another problem besides the drive itself. I have run into this problem ever since running Vista, and thats the stupid security. Security isnt stupid, but you have to be a professional IT person to figure out the way Vista security works. Those stupid dialog boxes were definately NOT intended for the home user. I have files that I want to copy that aparently I dont have access to, even though I am the one who created them. I found an account named "Unknown Account (S-1-5-21......) that I am sure came from a user account that I had in a different incarnation of Windows Vista, and since have reinstalled. So I know where the SID came from, but because of that I am denied access to the files. When I try to remove that account, I am told that I cannot remove that account because of inherited permissions and I should disable inheriting permissions. When I untick that option, I am told thatNO ONEwill be able to access the files. When I go up one level, where the permissions are supposedly inherited from, that account isnt listed. What the helll? I want access to my files! What do I do?

Hi, Thanks for posting in Microsoft TechNet Forum. According to your description, for further troubleshooting, please help to confirm the following items. 1. Is this issue occurring on your wife's computer during the process of copying files or on your own computer while running Windows Vista? Where are these files located? 2. Does the current user belong to a group of administrators or a group of standard users? 3. As you mentioned above that your external hard drive is about to die,it may be related to hardware defect. Socould you please describe the symptoms in details? By the way, I would like to suggest that you try to take ownership of these filesthen see if you can access them. If you cant access the external disk totally, try to take ownership of the hard drive: 1) Click Start > All Programs ->Accessories 2) Right-click Command Prompt and select Run as administrator. If you are prompted for an administrator password or confirmation, type your password or click Continue 3) Type: takeown /f filepath (Replace filepath with the location of your drive, example d:\) 4) Press Enter, you will be prompted with completed successfully message. 5) Type: icacls filepath /grant yourusername:f (Replace filepath with the location of your drive, and yourusername with your profile name) 6) Press Enter, you will be prompted with completed successfully message. 7) Then try to delete files in this drive and see if it works. If it is just due to specific files and folders, try to take ownership of these files and folders: How to Take Ownership and Full Control Permissions of Files and Folders in Vista Note: This response contains a reference to a third party World Wide Web site. Microsoft is providing this information as a convenience to you. Microsoft does not control these sites and has not tested any software or information found on these sites; therefore, Microsoft cannot make any representations regarding the quality, safety, or suitability of any software or information found there. There are inherent dangers in the use of any software found on the Internet, and Microsoft cautions you to make sure that you completely understand the risk before retrieving any software from the Internet. Meanwhile, I noticed that an unknown account (S-1-5-21......) is kept on your computer. You may need to delete this account in registry first. 1) Press Ctrl + R to run regedit, then press Enter. 2) Locate to this item: HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Windows NT\CurrentVersion\ProfileList 3) Delete the registry of this unknown account. Note: Remember to back registry before any modification. Hope this helps. Thanks.

Dale, thank you for replying.1. ok, the files that I am having problems with are on my external hard drive, files that I have not accessed since several Windows reinstalls ago, but want to keep. So no matter what computer I'm on, this unknown account is slapped on these files. What I do, since my internal hard drive is only 30GB, I use that for the Windows install, and program files only, and I use the external drive for data (pictures, music, etc) that I work on and use from the external hard drive, so some of the files I access frequently and some not so frequently.2. While trying to copy these files to my wifes computer, I am using her standard account.3. As far as the hard drive problem, the drive freezes, with the activity light on solid for hours at a time, when accessing certain files and folders in any way (copying, moving, etc.)I took ownership of the files/folders that I didnt have access to (using my wifes account, since I was copying to her computer), but still was told that I didnt have permission to copy them. I also made sure that I have full control, but made no difference.Its only certain files and folders, most of them are not a problem.

Hi, Thank you for prompt answers. I noticed that you logon with a standard account while copying files from your external hard drive to your wifes computer. However, you need to have administrator permissions while taking ownership of the files/folders in Windows Vista. Therefore, I may need to suggest that you logon your wifes computer with administrator account first, then run as administrator to take ownership of files/folders again. Moreover, since this issue occurred with some specific files, it may be related to corrupted files. If it is the case, to check for file corruptions, I recommend that you run Check Disk (Chkdsk.exe) and System File Checker (SFC.exe) by using the following procedure. To fix corrupted file issues =================== 1) Open an elevated Command Prompt window (click the Start button, type command in the Start Search box, right-click Command Prompt, and then click Run as administrator). 2) Run the following command (assuming that H is the external hard drive): chkdsk h: /F For more information, please visit chkdsk.exe TechNet materials as follow. Chkdsk http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc730714.aspx 3) After the command in step 2 completes, run the SFC /Scannow command. 4) Try to copy files and see if it works. Hope this helps. Thanks.

Dale,Thank you so much, I didnt think about trying to take ownership of the files while logged in as an administrator, that makes sense.I thought about corrupt files or maybe bad sectors on the external drive so I did run chkdsk once and returned 0kb in bad sectors, and it also said that it cleaned up 43 unused index entries from index $SDH of file 0x9 (I kept the log) so I thought there was no problem, but then after a couple days, I started having problems again. I ran chkdsk again and this time it said the file system was RAW, which I take to mean that it lost the formatting or something to that effect. The weird thing is, I was (and am) still able to access the files and folders, except for the ones that I dont have permission for.I will try again tonight to copy the files within the admin account. Thank you again.

Hi,Thanks for your updates.It's so weird that you are able to access the files and folders if this external hard disk is a RAW volume. To check if it is really a RAW volume, I would like to suggest that you right click the hard disk==>choose properties==>see the file system format. Moreover, I also need to suggest that you back up your files to other disks first and then perform modifications related to this disk.By the way, if neither of above works, you may need to contact Data Recovery Company for retrieving this files. Hope this helps. Thanks.

Hi,I just wanted to let you know that I tried on my computer under the administrator account, and took ownership of the files, and they copied fine. I did this as a test, I still have to put them on my wifes computer, but that was the answer, thank you!Also, I checked the properties of the external drive and Windows reports that it is an NTFS file system, so I think that chkdsk just fluked on me. I still dont really trust the drive anymore, and went price checking on a new drive, and I was told that Iomega external drives are quality drives when using files directly on the drive. So I think I will try to save up for one.Thank you again for your help!-Chris

Hey, one more thing:I want to see what you think, I worked more tonight on backing up my files and I tried copying one of my main folders on the root of the external drive, which ended up freezing on me again. So I tried creating the main folder on my desktop and then creating each folder inside that one and copying individual files from the external to those folders on the desktop. In both cases, the copy froze on the exact same files, and worked fine on the others. To me this looks like the few files I had problems with are corrupt. Do corrupt files cause a drive to hang? Thanks.-Chris

Hi,In common, if a file can't be copied, it might be in useor corrupted. Regarding this situation, I would like to suggest taking the following methods:1.Runsecurity software to scanthe whole diskand see if the disk is invaded by any virus or malware. 2. Boot in Safe Mode to copy this files. In Safe Mode, Operating System loads the minimum required basic device drivers and system services to start the system. Viruses and programs located in the Startup Program group are not started. Meanwhile, to answer your question: Do corrupt files cause a drive to hang? Answer: If a corrupted file is related to a servicethis service may not be initialed when a process calls for it. Therefore, applications that depend on this service may crash. Hope this helps. Thanks.