Every time I reinstall my computer and then try to access my external hard drives I keep getting
security errors and it won't let me access some of the folders.
After some research I figured out the way to reset the permissions on the drive:
- Right click a problematic folder in the drive and press Properties.
- Under Security press Advanced
- Under the Owner tab:
- Press Edit
- In Change owner to: select the new owner (your user).
- Enable Replace owner on subcontainers and objects
- Press OK.

- Close all of the dialogs until you reach the explorer dialog, and then open the
Security\Advanced dialog again (after changing the owner you have to reopen it).
- Under Permissions:
- Press Change Permissions
- Remove all NON-inherited permissions.
- Enable Include inheritable permissions from this object's parent
- Enable Replace all child object permissions with inheritable permissions from this object.
