Changed permissions of all C: files

[IanMassacre]

I might have made the most stupid mistake I've ever made. I was moving many files among different folders and every time I moved a file, a message appeared saying that I had to provide administrator permission to move the file. There are no other accounts on my PC so I'm the only user and admin. At the beginning I tried to ignore it, but then it became so annoying I searched in google for a way to revert this. Among the many "solutions" I found, there was one that said I had to "claim" ownership of the folder, I tried many times to no avail. So the stupid part in me thought it was a good idea to change ownership of the all the files in the C: drive. The process took some minutes, when it completed, the system went haywire. I could not open any file or program, the taskbar and home button disappeared. I restarted thinking that would fix it, and everything went south. I was greeted with a blue screen with the stop code oxc000021a, the PC restarted itself and the automatic repair tried and failed to fix the issue and the blue screen appeared again. As of now, my PC is trapped on an infinite loop of restarting, trying to repair itself, showing the blue screen and resetting again, on and on. I did a recovery drive and tried to enter the troubleshooting, among many commands on the cmd. I've tried any amount of commands and none of them work, basically because all of them require to run on admin privileges and of course I can't provide them. I get error codes like: "access denied" "you don't have permission to run this tool" "you don't have access" etc.

If anyone could shed some light about this issue I'd be forever grateful. I really don't want to reinstall Windows again, nor lose all my files due to my stupidity.
Sorry for the long post btw.

 

[ubuysa]

Depending on what connector your system drive uses (SATA, M.2) buy the appropriate caddy, remove the drive from the PC, insert into the caddy, plug into another PC/lap[top and copy your data off.

Then replace the drive in the PC and reinstall. I wouldn't attempt to recover from this permissions issue, that's going to be way too complex. Just reinstall.

A regular disk image backup of your system drive would have saved you from all that.

 

[davehc]

ubuysa's suggestion is a way. But it will mean you investing in some means to copy your files over.
The weakness in the suggestion is , not knowing what files it is you have been moving and where have you been altering permisssions.
You will probably end up with the same problem, and a few cents worst off.
I think you are going to need to bite the bullet and renstall.
What you could try and do is, at the start of the reinstall, see if you can repartition and rename the designation letter of the existing mess, and then put the new install on C: again. Just my opinion and it may not work.

As ubuysa suggests. Get yourself a free copy of, for example, Macrium and start a regular procedure of backing up - preferably on another Hd or external source

Even better would be if you could get a friend or family member to make you a Macrium autoboot. You could then do prettyy much as above. Run the autoboot and image your current disaster to a safe place. You can then go ahead with the new installation, without restrictions, and start experimenting with copying back your lost files at your leisure.

 

[ubuysa]

ubuysa's suggestion is a way. But it will mean you investing in some means to copy your files over.
The weakness in the suggestion is , not knowing what files it is you have been moving and where have you been altering permisssions.
You will probably end up with the same problem, and a few cents worst off.
I think you are going to need to bite the bullet and renstall.
What you could try and do is, at the start of the reinstall, see if you can repartition and rename the designation letter of the existing mess, and then put the new install on C: again. Just my opinion and it may not work.

As ubuysa suggests. Get yourself a free copy of, for example, Macrium and start a regular procedure of backing up - preferably on another Hd or external source

Even better would be if you could get a friend or family member to make you a Macrium autoboot. You could then do prettyy much as above. Run the autoboot and image your current disaster to a safe place. You can then go ahead with the new installation, without restrictions, and start experimenting with copying back your lost files at your leisure.

I suspect that all the OP wants is their user data, so copying the contents of C:\Users will do.

 

[davehc]

Sure. But obviously he is going to need a way to get his OS up and running again.
Just a question of choice of method, , I guess.
But, your suggestion which I complimented, it offers a chance to kill two birds. Save his whatever, make a clean install and get a useful backup.

 

[ubuysa]

Sure. But obviously he is going to need a way to get his OS up and running again.
Just a question of choice of method, , I guess.
But, your suggestion which I complimented, it offers a chance to kill two birds. Save his whatever, make a clean install and get a useful backup.

Oh no sorry, I wasn't being critical of you reply, I was just trying to make myself clear. Apologies if you read it as criticism.

 

[davehc]

Oh no sorry, I wasn't being critical of you reply, I was just trying to make myself clear. Apologies if you read it as criticism.

LOL. I didn't read it as anything. Just a useful conversation in the hope of giving some help to the OP