Hard Disk Access Issues!

  • Thread starter Thread starter Favad Qaisar
  • Start date Start date
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Favad Qaisar

I have 4 NTFS partitions in my 80GB hard drive.
Win Vista (Primary)
Win XP (Primary)
Documents (Logical)
Accessories (Logical)

I'm able to view all of them from WinXP, but when I boot from Win Vista I'm
not able to access Accessories partition. However if I reboot in safe mode,
I am able to access the partition.

I'll be glad if someone could tell me why this is so, and how I can correct
it?

favad
 
Hello,

This probably has to do with the permissions applied to the files.

In Windows Vista, programs that do not request administrator privilieges
(via a "Windows needs your permission to continue" prompt) do not receive
them. Thus, if a non-admin program tries to access a file that can only be
accessed by administrators, it will not be able to.

This is different than in Windows XP, where all programs received
administrator permissions if you were logged in as an administrator.

You will need to give your specific username in Vista permission to have
access to the files. This can be done via the Security tab in the properties
dialog if you are using Ultimate or Business editions, or the icacls
command-line tool if you are using any other editions.

Note that you should only change these permissions on your documents and
accessories drive; you should not change default security permissions on
operating system folders.

--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/
 
System folders are restricted to local Administrators group. But I don't
know how the safe mode in Vista overrides the NTFS protection, it's kinda
odd.
 
Yes, it would be completely nuts if NTFS worked that way. Do you have any
clue in what's happening?
I remember that I could access some protected files in my HD using Debian,
like Favad accessing them using the safe mode...
 
Favad probably logged in with the "administrator" account in safe mode.

IF you log in with the "administrator" account in safe mode, then you are
running outside of UAC (User Account Control). This means that all programs
that you run receive full admin privileges, without prompting.

Normally, in Windows Vista, programs must request admin privileges if they
need it; programs that do not request admin privileges run with normal
privileges.

Since explorer and most other programs don't receive admin privileges
normally (which would be required to access the XP files for write/modify),
it would have failed to do so during normal operation; however, in the safe
mode while running as admin, where these programs DO receive full admin
powers, it wasn't a problem.

If you use a program that needs admin access to your system but it doesn't
prompt you for permission when it starts, right-click it and click Run As
Administrator.

Also, *nix probably disregards NTFS security settings. NTFS security is only
meaningful when running Windows.

--
- JB
Microsoft MVP - Windows Shell/User

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/
 
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