Hello,
I have the same problem as a lot of people, of an external drive on which I have STORED data from a precedent computer (like music etc), and then when moving it to another computer, I get "restricted access" messages. I know the procedure to take ownership of the folder and subfolders. It did work: the problem is, the authorizations themselves would not propagate, because for some reason each and EVERY of the subfolders have the "Inherit from parent the permission entries that apply to child objects"...unchecked. All of them. So they are jut protected from inheritance. And ALTHOUGH you can propagate permissions if no subfolder is protected against that, I found no way, to propagate the inheritance behaviour itself! Or reset this behaviour by default: although some people told me about a magical "reset all ACL on child files and folders and allow inheritance by default" box, I never found it...
Any help about that? I am on XP HOME edition, not professional, and I have downloaded some program to update windows so that the "security" tab shows up even in normal mode...this might explain some things...
Thanks!Right-click the top-level folder; select properties. Click the security tab. Click ADVANCED. Check the box, "Replace permission entries on all child objects..."