Unfortunatly, a major thunderstorm passed thru my area and my computer was shut down hard and when I brought it up Windows was trashed, missing system files, some noise about disk-drive errors, etc. So I had to install Windows on another drive on the system.

I can copy files from anywhere on the drive to the new windows drive except for "my documents" WEHRE OF COURSE Visual Studio Projects, Word documents, IPod, etc, everything, my important stuff is being kept being kept. The message I get is "Access is denied"

When I bring the system up in Safe Mode with networking and look at the security permission tab for that folder I see that my SID Is not there. When I try and add it (my user ID) it validates it and it looks like I can now have access to it, great, but when I click apply the response is "media is write protected" cannot apply permission changes.

When I try and copy a file from my new windows drive to the original I get the message Drive is write protected

Try to defrag it from new windows - same message
Try to repair it from new windows - same message

Can anyone tell me where I could find this media write protect switch and where to change it.

Windows XP, NTFS all drives, SCSI

I never heard of harddisks with write protect. Only removable disks like floppies/optical disks. You might want to find out if your SCSI drive has such feature.

Anyway, I don't think your media is locked cuz if it was, you couldn't have booted into windows cuz windows per se writes stuff to the drive constantly. i.e. page file & registry. What you can do is boot up a live Windows (there's a tool for making such cd with an installed windows, google) and copy those files off to elsewhere. Or google for NTFS file managers that boot off a cd/dvd disk. The latter is usually in text mode and copying & pasting can be daunting with a keyboard.

Install PC Inspector File Recovery on the operational HDD, and use it to recover your files, if PC Inspector cannot recover your files you probably won't be recovering them, its an excellent program and will bypass whatever is stopping your recovery.


http://www.pcinspector.de/Sites/fi [...] language=1

Thanks guys,

I am using ZAR which is pulling off the files I need. I did find a TechNet blurb about "Access Denied" that covered my situation of not being able to start Windows, blue screen, ect and brining up windows on a different drive which is my situation. The article went on to say that NTFS on the failed XP Drive was still holding ACE/SID's from the failed XP windows environment and the solution was to go in and change/add full rights for the new windows environment and its users. And I did try that and got "Access Denied".

Last, I tried using CACLS and XCACLS from DOS (NTFS COMMANDS) to try and alter/add new permisions for new users and the result was Media/Disk drive write protect.

I think your suggestion about looking a the SCSI side is my next step. I have an Adaptech controler and a BIOS manager. I'll look to see if something was changed there by the power shutdown... Its a long shot but you never know.

Its an Ownership issue. When you install that 2nd drive, the ownership isn't the same since it is a new owner (new install).

You have to right click on the folder and go into the options to take Ownership of the files, then they will no longer be write protected. It would say the Owner is "Administrator" but the SSID isn't the same.. or whatever account was the owner. By looks it appears right - within the security aspect, its all different.