Solved Not accessible, access denied..

Woah. I have the original HD of my laptop in an external sleeve and it used to mount with no issues. A few months back, when I plugged it in, it mounted but I knew something was up when next to the drive icon, I didn't have the bar showing the storage amount next to it and sure enough, "F:\ is not accessible. Access denied"

I swept it w/Norton, found two small things and cleaned it. I used chkdsk and went through all of that. I right-clicked and changed permissions on every enclosing file/folder and most recently, I tried setting a "special group" to replace/take ownership.

There have been restarts when I tired this stuff. Now, I have a new little shared/group icon next to the drive K (what I renamed it) but still no storage bar which leads to the same not accessible. Access denied.

I did have to re-install from recovery disks about the time this happened. The external drive still has a boot sector on it but I hadn't actually started up from that external ever.

What could be a next step? I'm on Vista Home Premium 64. (I run a few apps at their 64bit versions) and on an HP entertainment PC (yes, it's old in pc years, but...)

Thanks

Do you have access to another computer? It would be interesting to try it on another to see if it can read it, although that would have to come later once you're sure that there isn't a security issue (virus compromised).

Regarding your re-install from recovery disks, why did you need to do this? I'm just wondering if you were combating a viral infection of some kind. What puzzles me is that you say the drive is not accessible, and yet Norton was able to scan it and find some infections and you were also able to run chkdsk on it as well. If it was inaccessible, Norton shouldn't have been able to see it either. Something weird is up. You might need to run disk recovery tools on it.

Also, when I try to "remove hardware" it says it is in use by Windows and cannot be removed....the standard close any programs or windows that might be open.

Yes, w/Norton I thought that too. I'm wanting to search to see if there is one of those "linux" disc online or such so I can at least see the files.

As to the reinstall, there was a hardware situation so I removed the drive, put a new one in and then used the recovery disc's to put my OS on the new drive.

I used a new user name and account but don't see how that could be it. I need to be able to force-eject w/o restart if possible.

It's strange that I can read the H: recovery partition on the drive w/no problem.

and... I tried to run chkdsk at a prompt and got "You do not have sufficient privileges" You need to invoke this utility running in an elevated mode."

I have admin credentials! It's my own machine. I have it shared by all etc. I do not have another windows machine to try it on unless there is some kind of virtual thing.

OK, picture is becoming a little clearer. So you essentially installed a new hard drive and recovered your operating system to it. All is fine. And now you try to mount your former HD to your computer via USB, but despite the OS recognizing it, trying to access it causes this privileges error. Also, because it's an HP computer, you have two partitions--the main one and the recovery one.

Vista tries to respect security settings defined in the operating system and for external devices. I have an external HD that I use and with some folders that I copied over directly from my computer, I find that doing ANY copying, modifying or deleting triggers a security prompt. Other folders are OK. Still, it's just a security prompt--I'm not blocked.


Here's something you should try, to deal with the Windows File Protection feature that seems to be kicking in:
Take Ownership of an Item in Windows Vista. Scroll down to "OPTION THREE" and follow the instructions. Good luck.

Great to hear the link was of help to you and thanks for the acknowledgement!