Can't copy to or delete from external portable hard drive

[tims4wins]

I have a Seagate external portable hard drive. I bought it a year and a half ago. I use it mainly to back up pictures.
 
I originally set it up on my old (work-issued) laptop. Last summer, I got a new work laptop. I didn't back up for a while, then went and tried to back up about a month ago.
 
When I try to copy files from my laptop to the drive, it tells me I need permission from a certain account (won't post that name here) - but the rub is that the account it says I need permission from IS my user account.
 
I went through all the steps I found online of changing the owner, permissions, etc., but I just can't seem to gain ownership access of the external drive. I can still see the files, I can copy the files from the external drive to the laptop, I just can't copy to the external drive or delete anything from the external drive.
 
As a side issue, I keep getting an error message that the recycle bin on the external drive has been corrupted or something like that. I googled how to fix that (using the command prompt), but when I try that it just tells me access is denied (presumably because of my access issue described above).
 
Help!

 

[begranter]

 
 
Yea sounds like a permissions thing. So this is what you need to do and lets see if it works. 

Right click the External Drive in My Computer and go to Properties. From here go to security. 

Note: If security tab not present then go back to My Computer and then click on File then Folder View for Vista and Windows 7. For XP and Windows 8 clck on View then Folder options. Then click on the View Tab Scrool to the bottom and uncheck use simple security. 

Now go to the Security tab. Go ahead and click on the Advanced Button at the bottom. In this windows click on the Owner tab. Then click on the Change Owner button. If its an external drive then i would change it to the Everyone User so you don't have this issue later and hit apply. Should take owerner ship now. Now click on. Now on the users part at the top click on Edit. In there you should probably see and Unknow User name. Click on that and remove it. 

Then try accessing it.

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2159003/external-hard-drive-access-denied.html
 

 

[tims4wins]

http://www.tomshardware.com/answers/id-2159003/external-hard-drive-access-denied.html
 

 
Didn't fix it - when I change it to Everyone, when I try to delete a file from the drive it says I need permission from Everyone. Arg.
 
Edit: basically whoever I make the owner, it says I need permission from that user in order to delete a file, even though I am the owner/user

 

[Couperin47]

We are not told the OSes involved, but at this point if you can copy from the drive I'd back up everything off that drive and, attached to your current laptop, I'd reformat the damn thing, then run chkdsk on it and start over.

 

[tims4wins]

Sorry, I'm on Windows 7.
 
Yesterday I copied all the files from the external drive to my laptop, and right clicked on the external drive, clicked format, and it get me an access denied error.

 

[Couperin47]

Sorry, I'm on Windows 7.
 
Yesterday I copied all the files from the external drive to my laptop, and right clicked on the external drive, clicked format, and it get me an access denied error.

 
Get Seagate's diagnostic tools, I believe you have a failure in the drive.

 

[tims4wins]

 
Get Seagate's diagnostic tools, I believe you have a failure in the drive.

Thanks, will try this tomorrow

 

[begranter]

Sorry, I'm on Windows 7.
 
Yesterday I copied all the files from the external drive to my laptop, and right clicked on the external drive, clicked format, and it get me an access denied error.

 
Was the OS on the old machine XP?

 

[tims4wins]

 
Was the OS on the old machine XP?

 
Good question. I think it was also 7. But what if it was XP?
 
By the way, I downloaded the Seagate diagnostic today and ran a full check - it came back clean. I still get the corrupted recycle bin error, and still can't copy to it.

 

[DavidTai]

Is this the kind of issue you were having trouble with?
 
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/159276-Corrupted-Recycle-Bin-in-external-drive

 

[tims4wins]

Is this the kind of issue you were having trouble with?
 
http://windowssecrets.com/forums/showthread.php/159276-Corrupted-Recycle-Bin-in-external-drive

 
Kind of. When I try to delete it, I get "requires permission from User XX" (XX being me). I just can't seem to gain access to this external drive (apart from being able to view the files and copy them to my laptop)

 

[Max Power]

If you want to wipe it out completely, you can use the DISKPART command.
 
Go to Start > type CMD > CTRL-SHIFT-ENTER to run as Administrator
 
At the DOS prompt type
 
diskpart
 
and enter. Then get a listing of the disks attached to your sustem with the command
 
list disk
 
Find the one that's your external drive, select it, and clean the partitions with the commands
​​
select disk [number]​
 
clean
 
 You can then quit out of the command prompt and create a new partition in the Disk Manager tool.​​

 

[tims4wins]

Thanks, guess I will give that a shot next

 

[tims4wins]

If I do wipe it out completely, it will erase all permissions / owners, correct?

 

[begranter]

If I do wipe it out completely, it will erase all permissions / owners, correct?

 
That's the hope.  When you format, pick a file type based on your needs.  (FAT32 doesn't have permissions protection, but is less reliable)
[SIZE=14.3999996185303px] [/SIZE]http://logiclounge.com/2012/09/24/what-are-the-different-hard-drive-file-types/
 

 
Good question. I think it was also 7. But what if it was XP?
 
By the way, I downloaded the Seagate diagnostic today and ran a full check - it came back clean. I still get the corrupted recycle bin error, and still can't copy to it.

 
[SIZE=14.3999996185303px]It's possible that if it was XP that the switch of OS is the root of the issues.[/SIZE]

 

[tims4wins]

So I cleaned it, and it is still giving me the recycle bin error, and still won't let me copy over. Says I need permission from "Administrators" even though I went to security and gave full access to all users.
 
What now?

 

[Orange Julia]

I think it is time to throw it in the river.

 

[tims4wins]

Update: I have another notebook that I totally forgot about - old piece of shit I haven't used in years. However, when I plugged the portable hard drive into the notebook, I was able to add files to it, delete, etc. So that would indicate this is a permissions issue... but I just can't seem to get around it.

 

[begranter]

Update: I have another notebook that I totally forgot about - old piece of shit I haven't used in years. However, when I plugged the portable hard drive into the notebook, I was able to add files to it, delete, etc. So that would indicate this is a permissions issue... but I just can't seem to get around it.

 
Format it in FAT32 on the other notebook.  FAT32 doesn't have permissions built into it.  You should then be able to change it to whatever format you want on the new computer.

 

[tims4wins]

 
Format it in FAT32 on the other notebook.  FAT32 doesn't have permissions built into it.  You should then be able to change it to whatever format you want on the new computer.

 
Only let me format it as exFAT (whatever that is)... and then when I plug it back into the new laptop and try to copy something over, I get a "you need permission to perform this action" error.
 
Feels like I am so close... yet so far away.
 
PS thanks for all your help

 

[begranter]

exFAT format doesn't use permissions so the only reasons I can think of for you continuing to getting the permissions error is the drive is corrupted and I thought wiping it and formatting it would fix that.  Can you try formatting it on the OS/computer with which you plan on using the drive?
 
Another thing to try is to re-name the recycle bin and then delete it.  By re-naming it, the system should create a fresh bin without anything left over, then deleting the old one should hopefully remove any leftover permissions that were locked in the corrupted recycle bin.

 

[tims4wins]

Thanks again. I have tried formatting on the new laptop, and have also tried the recycle bin thing but it won't let me rename it or delete it - permissions.

I opened up a help ticket with seagate last night, we'll see what happens

 

[begranter]

Okay, sorry I couldn't be more help.  In the future, don't buy SeaGate:

 

[tims4wins]

Apparently not

 

[Couperin47]

Info for when you are looking to buy any hard drive. We really have only 3 options for technology, owned by just 2 companies:
 
Seagate, which has had inferior reliability experience for years now.
Samsung, bought by Seagate years ago, it's now their 'bargain' brand, most product has only a 1 yr warranty, which shows what Seagate thinks of them, saves you just a few bucks, to be avoided.
 
Western Digital, generally more reliable than Seagate, but warranties, like with everyone else, have largely been reduced from what used to be an industry standard of 5 years, to 3, 2 or even one on some of the
  external usb drives. Look at the warranty, the 1 yr warranty drive really is a different model drive inside than the 3 yr warranty model. The Caviar line is still 5 yr warranty and now priced much higher.
 
Hitachi, HGST (Hitachi Global Storage Technology). Originally this was IBM's drive division. Once highly regarded, they opened a major production facility in Hungary for the North American & Euro markets which proceeded to churn out utter junk. Their Deskstar flagship models become known to one and all as Deathstars, IBM gave up and sold it all to Hitachi, who promptly moved all production to the Far East. Then acquired by Western Digital in a complex deal that requires WD to retain separate factories/technology for a few more years so their drives are not identical to WDs...yet.
 
Toshiba, never made a full line of drives, they specialized in 2.5" laptop drives and smaller. Sold out to Hitachi and today all Toshiba product is just Hitachi (the actual labels on the drive all say HGST), so also really a WD product.
 
LaCie, Fantom, all others are just repackagers, they buy drives from one of the above, depending on who has the best prices atm, you have no idea what's inside anything they sell.
 
These days the typical Hitachi/Toshiba drive is generally cheaper than the WD equivalent and for most 3.5" drives has a 3 yr warranty while the WD has a 2 yr warranty.