Member Avatar for huggie54

hiya all, a mate of mine has a new machine(windows 7)he has installed his old xp drive and set it to slave,windows 7 sees this as local disk G,IT can see the folders,but denies access saying the path is not found,any help would be swiftly passed on and appreciated.hes been trying to sort this since xmas,thanks in advance huggie54

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  • Latest Post Latest Post by JessicaD42

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Short summary: when Windows 7 mounts an XP disk as G: and Explorer can list folders but then says the path is not found or denies access, the cause is usually one of these—NTFS ownership/ACLs, Windows-protected junctions (Documents and Settings), filesystem corruption, or file encryption (EFS or third-party). and were pointing at the right area (ownership/permissions); ’s “format it” advice would destroy recoverable data and should be avoided unless the drive is expendable.

Recommended troubleshooting sequence (safe, non-destructive):

  • Confirm the volume is healthy: open Computer > Manage > Disk Management and verify the partition is online, has a drive letter and an NTFS filesystem. If it shows RAW or no partition, do not format—use recovery tools first.

  • If NTFS, repair obvious metadata errors from an elevated command prompt:

    chkdsk G: /f

  • If the partition is healthy but access is denied, take ownership and grant the Administrators group access. GUI method: right-click the folder → Properties → Security → Advanced → Owner → change to an Administrator account and check “Replace owner on subcontainers and objects,” then grant Administrators Full Control. Command-line alternative (run cmd as Administrator):

    takeown /F "G:\Users\username" /R /D Y
icacls "G:\Users\username" /grant Administrators:F /T /C

Notes and cautions: taking ownership and changing ACLs will allow access in most cases but will not decrypt EFS-encrypted files—you’ll need the original user’s EFS certificate/private key to decrypt. Also, Windows 7 exposes protected junctions (for example, G:\Documents and Settings) that are not meant to be browsed; user data lives under G:\Users\<username>\ so check that path instead. Back up anything important before making mass ACL changes or repairs. If these steps fail, consider copying the drive to an external enclosure and using a recovery environment or a data-recovery specialist rather than formatting.

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Member Avatar for Bob_180_Bob

Hi,
I am not sure from what you have said but it sounds like a permission problem, go to this site and read about taking ownership of XP files and see if that is your problem.
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/308421

Member Avatar for anonamous

you dont have an OS on your slave drive.
if your dealing with permision rights.
format it.

Member Avatar for JessicaD42

Huggie54,

Have you checked the permission settings on these folders?

Also, Microsoft does have an official Windows 7 Support Forum located here social.technet.microsoft.com/Forums/en-US/category/w7itpro/ . It is supported by product specialists as well as engineers and support teams. You may want to also check the threads available there for additional assistance and guidance.

Jessica
Microsoft Windows Client Team

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