Resetting NTFS files security and permission (Windows 7)

SCENARIO

I was running Vista with two NTFS partitions (C: and D:), then formatted C: partition and installed Windows 7 RC.

The second partition (D:) had some files security set on files and folders.

After Windows 7 was installed, some files on drive D: were not accessible anymore and I was getting “Access Denied”.

I tried to right-click/properties on the folders that were not accessible and changed their owner and changed permissions but still some folders were still inaccessible not matter what I did.

SOLUTION

The tool “cacls” allows to display or change ACLs (access control lists) and can help to reset ACLs.

In Windows 7 it is called “icalcs”. To reset [gs file]s permissions:

CD /D D:

icacls * /T /Q /C /RESET

And that’s it!

After that, the files permissions are turned back on default and I could access them back again. cacls is a handy tool to change permissions of files en masse.

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