I decided to do some cleaning of unwanted files on my PC, which has had occasional stretches of non-use. I now get an “access denied” message on my D: drive. I have all the latest drivers and updates for Vista Ultimate 64-bit. I poked around the Properties menu and am getting confused about how to regain access permissions. The creator is not listed. I don’t even remember what’s on the drive; it could possibly belong to my old user/admin account before a restore or reinstall. I cannot get ownership of the drive to open it. Any suggestions?

Vista doesn’t automatically give administrators full access to folders and files from other installations or users, even if the username and password are the same.

To regain ownership of the drive and its contents, right-click it and select Properties. Click the Security tab, then the Advanced button. Go to the Owner tab, and Edit it to give ownership to your computer’s administrator/primary user. Be sure to include subcontainers and files. Now click OK. Go back to the Security tab, highlight the Administrator you just gave ownership to, and hit Edit, then give Full Control permissions for that drive. You should be able to fully access everything on the disk.

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