Permissions issue? can't access certain files

Hey all

over the last year, i went from Windows 7 to Windows server 2008 R2, and now back to windows 7. I'm using the same username and password in each.

i have several hard drives with content that are supposed to remain completely separate from the OS, but had certain access restrictions on them.

Today, i found out that a lot of my pictures from the last year are unable to be opened or viewed. They list S-1-5-21-(really long number here) as the owner, which i recognize as being the registry entry for a user on a previous install of windows.

For whatever reason, these pictures, and several other files, are now locked down and can't be opened, throwing out an error saying they are corrupted or damaged.

i know this isn't the case as a few of these files were opened up/added during the windows server 2008 R2 install.

i've tried taking over as owner on some of these files, but it simply doesn't work. it's almost as if the file was encrypted with the owner info. i dare not change any more, less i loose access completely.

i did have the sense to install windows 7 on the hard drive only after i made a backup of the previous drive, however i'm not sure if i can extract the user to gain access to these files again, and i am similarly not sure i can "reactivate" that drive to be able to run server 2008 long enough to fix the permissions.

anyone have any ideas?

This almost feels like an EFS issue.

 

that is interesting, though i'm not sure if it fits my situation. I also had this problem with a number of files coming from Win 7 to Server 2008 R2 initially, though it wasn't as pronounced.

thank you for the fast reply

 

i still run into the problem of some of the files "belonging" the the previous install of Win 7 Ultimate. i'm not seeing any anything on that site that looks related to my issue, but i'll try sending him a PM if he's on here.

Any other guru's got any ideas?

 

i have. i'm not finding much of anything here or on google related to my issue. if you'd like to share your search terms with me, i'd appreciate it, as it could help me outside of just here. Perhaps i am searching for the wrong terms?

i've tried:

permissions issues after reinstall
corrupt or damaged after reinstall
taking ownership doesn't allow file access
images unviewable after reinstall


and many more.

 

Yes, but it deals with file permissions on an existing system, not file permissions set from a previously installed and now formatted system. Also, the more i look at these, the more i believe that they are from the previous windows 7 install, and not from the windows server 2008 r2 install, which makes it even more difficult to recover.

 

ah, i see yeah, i found him and pm'd. i hope he'll take a look and help, but i have this feeling that those images are lost.