How to recover from denying all rights/permissions to open my disk drives in Windows 7?

Question

I mistakenly denied all rights to open my disk drives, including administrator. Now I cannot access any of my disk drives.

Is there a workaround for this? Windows 7 won't let me create a new user or account. Everything is locked up.

Answer 1

If you've changed all the permissions on all folders under C: you've probably hosed your Windows 7 installation. There are too many distinct ACLs for it to be worth putting them back in place.

As far as fixing this goes, you should be able to change ownership of a folder to your account and then once you take ownership you can change the security settings again.

Answer 2

Follow these steps:

• Enable the built in Administrator (Click for Steps)
• After you enable the built-in Administrator, log off your current user
• Log in to the built-in Administrator account
• Attempt to disable UAC while logged in to the built-in Administrator account. (Methods to disable)
• After disabling the UAC, then reboot your system.
• Boot in safe mode via F8 during boot-up but before the Windows Logo appears
• While in safe mode, make the wanted changes to the drives. (Credit)
• Reboot and confirm work.
• Disable the built-in Administrator account.
• Enable Window's UAC.

Warning: Disable the Administrator Account and Enable UAC when finish for security reasons.