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Portman
Asked: 2010-06-24 05:50:39 +0800 CST

Take ownership of NTFS volume after moving to new machine

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I had a 1.5TB hard disk in a Windows 2003 Server. Two partitions, one FAT and the other NTFS.

The server crashed, and while we are ordering a new one, I would like to access the data on that volume. However, when I attach the drive to my Windows 7 64bit desktop, the entire NTFS volume shows up as Access Denied. (The FAT volume is accessible just fine.)

In Explorer, the volume shows up with no info:

Explorer

In Logical Disk Manager, the volume appears with no info:

Disk Manager

I tried running TAKEOWN on the volume, but since the entire volume is inaccessible, it didn't work:

TAKEOWN

I also don't have permission to take ownership using the Windows 7 GUI:

GUI Access Denied

I have the username, password, and SID of the owner from the server where this volume was previously. The volume was not encrypted and was not compressed.

How can I gain access to this drive?

windows-server-2003 windows-7 access-control-list ntfs

3 Answers

  1. Best Answer

    If you are logged in as an Administrator your should be able to take ownership in the owner tab of that last screenshot and then change permissions. Or, if this doesn't work, you could download a Linux boot CD and access the files that way.

    • 4

  2. Using the command-line prompt with the Icacls instruction might help also, just to let you know. I have tried it already, no later than lastnight, and worked quite well.

    For example:

    icacls "[drive]:\Full path" /setowner %USERNAME% /t /c

    This above instruction will change onwership for all of the folders and files from the specified full path and all subfolders and files. The /c tells the tool to continue on error, so that it can process all it can.

    icacls "[drive]:\Full path" /grant %USERNAME%:F /t /c

    This above instruction grants FULL (:F) access to the specified filepath.

    Besides, the Linux Live CD is also a neat solution.

    • 1

  3. I had the same issue except I wasn't able to see the Security tab at all when accessing the properties of the disk. I managed to lock myself out of it (being my laptop's only hard disk) when I tried to resize the C:\ logical disk (stupidly, admittedly ;)) but managed to corrupt it, to which Check Disk fixed it but buggered the NTFS permissions.

    I found that TakeOwn does work on logical drives, but you have to be careful about what syntax you declare in the command prompt. You wrote in your screenshot "J:\", drop the "\" and TakeOwn will pick up the drive.

    I'm still locked out though. Hmm...

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