How do I change ownership of volume on Windows 7?

[Mark F]

I have various disks from other systems. In some cases the disks are
system disks.

How can I use the disk on my current system?

I don't have any Encrypting File System files and it is OK if the
disk will no longer be useable on the original system without having
to reverse the procedure.

For example, files owned by ACCOUNTA on the original system
would have changed to be owned by ACCOUNTA on the current system.

Also, whatever files were owned by the Administrator account on the
other system should now be used by the Administrator account on this
system.

In addition, administrator access should be permitted by accounts
having administrator rights on the current system.

If possible, access to the contents of files in Encrypting File System
access should be possible by having used the procedure for
1. Back up Encrypting File (EFS) certificate as described in:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Back-up-Encrypting-File-System-EFS-certificate
on the original system and
2. Recover encrypted files or folders as in:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Recover-encrypted-files-or-folders
on the current system

I think step 2 would have to be performed before changing ownership,
but I don't know what happens to access after I change the ownership.

 

[Dave-UK]

I have various disks from other systems. In some cases the disks are
system disks.

How can I use the disk on my current system?

I don't have any Encrypting File System files and it is OK if the
disk will no longer be useable on the original system without having
to reverse the procedure.

For example, files owned by ACCOUNTA on the original system
would have changed to be owned by ACCOUNTA on the current system.

Also, whatever files were owned by the Administrator account on the
other system should now be used by the Administrator account on this
system.

In addition, administrator access should be permitted by accounts
having administrator rights on the current system.

If possible, access to the contents of files in Encrypting File System
access should be possible by having used the procedure for
1. Back up Encrypting File (EFS) certificate as described in:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Back-up-Encrypting-File-System-EFS-certificate
on the original system and
2. Recover encrypted files or folders as in:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/Recover-encrypted-files-or-folders
on the current system

I think step 2 would have to be performed before changing ownership,
but I don't know what happens to access after I change the ownership.

I'm not sure of what you are trying to do and you haven't quoted any error
messages but this thread might be of some help:
http://serverfault.com/questions/154018/take-ownership-of-ntfs-volume-after-moving-to-new-machine

 

[Mark F]

I'm not sure of what you are trying to do and you haven't quoted any error
messages but this thread might be of some help:
http://serverfault.com/questions/154018/take-ownership-of-ntfs-volume-after-moving-to-new-machine

Yes, the errors in the article are errors that I ran into. I was able
to take ownership of most of the files, but many I had to do on a
sub-folder by sub-folder basis or even file by file.

I found that sometimes I could access a directory by clicking on it
and getting a popup window saying I could get access permanently by
clicking as directed, but I couldn't figure out how to recursively
get access to an entire tree. (so if there were folders A\B and A\C
I couldn't see how to set the tree A... so I had access, and had to
click on A\B, be told I didn't have access but could get it by
clicking as directed, and then I had to click on A\C and fix it.

It also seemed like many Windows XP updates were not set up correctly
since some I could delete the update uninstall folders
with no problem, some I could delete by doing the command:
ATTRIB -S -H -R D:\ /S
first and then deleting,
some I had to handle sub-folder by sub-folder,
some I had to handle file by file, and
one or two I couldn't delete. It seems like I shouldn't have been
able to get rid of any of the update files if I couldn't get rid
of some of them. (The update uninstall files are things that would
normally be in folder trees with names of the form:
C:\WINDOWS\$NtUninstall*

I also did right-click Properties, tab Security on the volume and
attempted to give myself access to everything, but this didn't work.

Perhaps I had to run some program as Administrator (as contrasted
with my account which has Administrator privileges), but I
didn't know how to do this. Do I have to login as Administrator or
can I use a "Run as" for something or other.

 

[PaulM]

You can try this script here:
http://www.paulsxp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3610

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"Mark F" wrote in message
news:[email protected]...

I have various disks from other systems. In some cases the disks are
system disks.

How can I use the disk on my current system?

I don't have any Encrypting File System files and it is OK if the
disk will no longer be useable on the original system without having
to reverse the procedure.

For example, files owned by ACCOUNTA on the original system
would have changed to be owned by ACCOUNTA on the current system.

Also, whatever files were owned by the Administrator account on the
other system should now be used by the Administrator account on this
system.

In addition, administrator access should be permitted by accounts
having administrator rights on the current system.

If possible, access to the contents of files in Encrypting File System
access should be possible by having used the procedure for
1. Back up Encrypting File (EFS) certificate as described in:

http://windows.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-vista/Back-up-Encrypting-File-System-EFS-certificate
on the original system and
2. Recover encrypted files or folders as in:

 

[Char Jackson]

You can try this script here:
http://www.paulsxp.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=3610

<snip>

May I make some suggestions, please?

1. Please don't top post.
2. Please don't post links to your personal site without adding a
description of what the link points to and what it's supposed to do.
3. Please use a standard Usenet signature delimiter, and place your
signature and personal links there.

Thanks for your consideration.

 

[Dave-UK]

I also did right-click Properties, tab Security on the volume and
attempted to give myself access to everything, but this didn't work.

Perhaps I had to run some program as Administrator (as contrasted
with my account which has Administrator privileges), but I
didn't know how to do this. Do I have to login as Administrator or
can I use a "Run as" for something or other.

I've no experience of trying to take ownership of a complete disk.
You can add a 'Take Ownership' option to the right-click menu for files
and folders via many registry tweaks on the net (or use PaulM's script).
These should work recursively through a folder tree.
If your account belongs to the Administrators group that should be OK.
Also, 'taking ownership' is usually a two step process where the first
step is to change the owner of a file and the second step is to grant
full control of the file to the new owner.