Unable to delete or take ownership of folder (Windows 7)

14

5

I have a folder that I am unable to delete.

I also cannot take ownership.

The hard drive is one I have previously used in another PC, if this makes any difference.

When trying to take ownership it says it cannot display the current owner and when trying to take ownership selecting any group says access denied.

I've also tried via the command line using takeown however this too says Access Denied.

Windows 7, and I am logged in as an administrator.

fileperms

Posted 2013-05-04T15:41:15.760

Reputation: 153

Question was closed 2014-04-27T17:41:34.393

Karan's advice is particularly good for folders with thousands of files because rebooting to Linux is much faster than waiting for take ownership to complete. – ndemou – 2017-06-15T22:05:24.633

1If you need to delete it and Windows is not allowing you to do so, boot from a Linux Live CD/USB and get rid of the folder. – Karan – 2013-05-05T20:27:51.673

Is it on an external drive? USB or similar? – Burhan Khalid – 2014-01-30T14:40:02.837

Answers

17

  1. Download PsExec.exe from Sysinternals, this tool allows you to open a command prompt under LOCAL SYSTEM privileges: http://live.sysinternals.com/psexec.exe (put it in C:\temp)

  2. Open a command prompt with Administrator Privileges

  3. CD into C:\temp

  4. Run: psexec -s -i cmd.exe, this installs a temporary service which will open a command prompt under LOCAL SYSTEM account. The service will be automatically deleted after you close the screen (i.e. after EXIT)

  5. Run: TAKEOWN /F <folder> /R /D Y, this will set the Administrators group as owner, it also recurses into the folder

  6. To give the Administrators group full control rights, run ICACLS <folder> /grant administrators:F /T; the /T indicates that this operation is performed on all matching files and directories below the directories specified

Heebr

Posted 2013-05-04T15:41:15.760

Reputation: 384

2takeown must have parameter /A specified to assign ownership to the Administrators instead of the local system account. – Mahmoud Al-Qudsi – 2014-11-15T21:18:27.750

1perform file system check (chkdsk on Windows) - perhaps the file system is damaged – Zrin – 2016-11-14T13:04:18.670

@Zrin - this worked for me (running chkdsk). Suggest adding this as an answer. – CJBS – 2016-12-20T23:11:39.533

In my case takeown is also saying Access is denied, both with and without the /A parameter. chkdsk also didn't help. Does anyone have any other idea, please? I can't believe I'll have a file I can't get rid of my file system :( – Dawid Ferenczy Rogožan – 2017-02-09T20:04:44.527

Heebr's three-step ICACLS worked in the psexec command line for me. – Stephen Drew – 2017-03-07T00:34:54.217

1Thanks, but it still says Access Denied when trying through the cmd prompt opened by psexec – fileperms – 2013-05-04T16:04:51.450

Which part says acces denied? TAKEOWN or ICACLS? – Heebr – 2013-05-04T16:31:39.767

8

Could be it's locked by some process. Take a look at link if there's something you can use.

– Heebr – 2013-05-04T16:40:47.943

takeown says Access Denied. Additionally the folder is not in use by anything (I had read that question earlier and Unlocker finds nothing). – fileperms – 2013-05-04T18:26:11.413

Is the folder read-only? Maybe a ATTRIB -R -S -H <folder> will help? – Heebr – 2013-05-04T19:24:11.573

1If this still doesn't help, try resetting permission (Inherit from above) and give Full rights to everyone by subsequently executing: 1: 'ICACLS <folder> /reset /T', 2: 'ICACLS <folder> /setowner everyone', 3: 'ICACLS <folder> /grant everyone:F' – Heebr – 2013-05-04T19:43:58.773

Asked: 2013-05-04T15:41:15.760

Viewed: 63 830 times

Active: 2016-12-21T01:38:16.337