How to unset administrator deny permission?

I accidentally denied permissions to Users to one of my entire harddrives (was trying to only do it to ONE folder, but explorer screwed up and decided that right clicking on the folder didn't count!) and not even my Admin account can unset it. (Access is denied). Is there any way to fix this, or am I permanently screwed? Any attempts to change the permissions results in access is denied.

I tried going into safe mode and everything, I have NO way to change the permission.

It's a deny to 'full control' on D:\

I tried going into cmd and using cacls but it even says access is denied, with or without administrator.

I NEED IMMEDIATE HELP ON THIS

You'll normally get an access denied error on full control over an entire drive.

Have you tried taking ownership of whatever you messed up in your admin account?

If not try that, and be patient, it'll take a long time!

That's just it, how can I take control of a drive whose been set "full control" denied to even the admin?

If I even so much as type cacls d: I get "access is denied". If I go to "Computer", the drive doesn't even show how much space it has anymore, and if I right click and go to 'properties', I do not even get a SECURITY tab for it.

I even enabled my admin account and tried there, no go. Nothing works. Not even safe mode. Do I have to completely format and reinstall Windows because I pretty much locked out admin from an entire drive, where half my software and all my pictures/music/etc are at?

Try doing this.

1. Open a elevated command prompt.

2. In the elevated command prompt, type takeown /f (full path of file) and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute (full path of file) with your file's full path. For example,takeown /f C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui

3. A message will be displayed that this completed successfully. This will give you ownership of the file.

4. In the same elevated command prompt, type icacls (full path of file) /grant (user name):F and press Enter.
NOTE: Substitute (full path of file) with the full path of the file and (user name) with your user name. For example, icacls C:\Windows\System32\en-US\winload.exe.mui /grant Brink:F

5. A message will be displayed that this completed successfully.
NOTE: You should be able to delete or modify the file now. If you still can't, you may need to reboot into Safe Mode and try this again. It may vary according to the file. Some are more stubborn.

Code:

C:\Users\Lazure>takeown /f D:\
ERROR: Access is denied.

C:\Users\Lazure>icacls d:\ /grant Lazure:F
d:\: Access is denied.
Successfully processed 0 files; Failed processing 1 files

That's what I get in an elevated Command Prompt. The odd thing is, when I booted to my Win7 install disc, I was able to do that icacls thing and it worked. But upon booting into real windows 7, it was denied again.

Is there a file in windows I can just plain nuke and have it start over with all permissions information?

There probably is a file to delete to reset permissions but i wouldn't fancy messing with that!!

Have you tried to download a program that takes ownership for you, maybe that'll force it? It's worth a try

http://www.howtogeek.com/downloads/TakeOwnership.zip

Could you please post some screenshots of the security tabs in properties?

Also, have you enabled the hidden admin account in W7? You may find that you have some more permissions than you do in a regular admin account, let me know if you need help activating this. (BTW, the hidden admin account can be disabled after you're done!

I went ahead and reformatted and reinstalled Windows 7. The drive was STILL denying me permission! How on earth did windows remember the permissions set on that drive if the whole OS was wiped?

Anyways, at least this time, I was able to take ownership and then ran an "icacls D:\ /Grant Users:F /T" so that it would let me access the files on the drive again. However, now it's really really screwed up. All the folders on the drive have a "lock" icon overlay. Also, the security tab is screwy, too.

It used to show 4-5 users in the list that I could control the permissions to. Now it only shows ONE (Users).

All other drives have folders that say their permissions and stuff inherit from the drive's root. All my files on D:\ do not inherit at all, now, and do not list anything like SYSTEM or Authenticated Users or "everyone" anymore. It just lists one thing.

Grrr, even a fresh reinstall can't get my broken NTFS file permissions back... so what do I do? I even ran that SubInACL util with the registry reset stuff, no go

WOW, that is screwed!!
A clean reinstall of Windows is a bit OTT though isn't it?!

If i were you, if you have the space, copy everything onto a different drive. Windows has obviously left something on that drive to remember the permissions (that's no bad thing btw!)
Once you have everything copied over, nuke the other drive and reformat it.
Take ownership of copied files again, and if able, reset the permissions opf all the files though the security tab in properties.
Copy everything back over, and everything should be OK

I've got a headache even reading this thread. Good luck!!!

Not sure this will help - you might give it a try : How do I restore security settings to the default settings?