Access “private” folders protected by NTFS ~ Ask The Admin

Thursday, March 29, 2007

Access “private” folders protected by NTFS

lock security linux windowsI won’t go into the backstory on this, because it would take too long. Basically, the hard drive where Linux and Windows co-exist with a dual boot loader installed will not boot at the moment.

Rather than fight with the friggin thing, I swapped that hard drive with another drive that I had inside of an IDE-to-USB enclosure and installed Windows on it. I can just plug my former hard drive into a USB port and get at the files that are on it. This is just temporary. I had other things to do than fight with an obstinate motherboard.

One problem - The user went and made the‘\Documents and Settings\Administrator\’ directory “private”, just before taking it to the repair shop. When I plugged it into the USB port, Windows wouldn’t let me access that folder! Talk about Murphy’s Law.

Anyway, I searched around for a while for an an answer to this problem and it turns out to be ridiculously simple to fix.

1) Log into an administrator’s account
2) Go to Folder Options and turn off “use simple file sharing”
3) Right-click the protected folder, click “properties” and click the security tab
4) Take over ownership of the folder and all subobjects


Booo Yah! Take that Microsoft!
_TheAdmin_