How do I regain control of my drive's files after reinstalling Windows 7?

Question

I recently had to reinstall Windows 7 on my C drive. However, after doing so, I found that the data on my D and E drives had insufficient permissions. Every time I click a file or folder I get the following prompt:

You don't currently have permission to access this folder.

Click Continue to permanently get access to this folder

Clicking continue seems to stop the prompts, but I still end up with permissions issues for files and subfolders inside each folder I do this for. How do I fix permissions globally for an entire drive?

I saw this suggestion:

http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_7-security/you-dont-currently-have-permission-to-access-this/e84e5370-ff58-4050-a6fd-55f84ad2ffd4

But don't understand the command prompt well enough to actually do this and don't entirely know what it's doing either.

Answer 1

The best way is to replace the owner on all your files, You can do this by replacing owner on the top directory and recurse it through child items. TechNet-article

1.Open Windows Explorer, and then locate the file or folder you want to take ownership of.

2.Right-click the file or folder, click Properties, and then click the Security tab.

3.Click Advanced, and then click the Owner tab.

4.Click Edit, and then do one of the following: ◦ To change the owner to a user or group that is not listed, click Other users and groups and, in Enter the object name to select (examples), type the name of the user or group, and then click OK.

◦ To change the owner to a user or group that is listed, in the Change owner to box, click the new owner.

5.To change the owner of all subcontainers and objects within the tree, select the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects check box.

EDIT As well as doing the above

Make sure your user has full control of all file and directories by doing the following.

1. Right click on the top directory and choose properties. Click on Security tab and choose advanced.
2. Click on the permission tabs,choose change permissions.
3. If your current username is in this list, then choose it and click edit (If your username is not in the list then click add, and then add your user in and then select user and click edit.
4. Tick full control press ok.
5. Tick box that says replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object
6. Press OK