Windows 10: Unable to access the Users folder when tried to use it from an external Harddrive.

My old laptop Dell Inspiron 5559 crashed due to a motherboard defect and I took out its part to use it as an external hard drive system for my other new laptop. To my surprise, I am able to access all the folders except for the Users folder. Does anyone know what's going wrong with this and how can I fix this? I definitely don't want to lose the data I have saved under users/documents or users/image or users/videos.I have also added a screenshot for reference.Also, my hard drive is SSD and it was disk partitioned into two drives when I was using it with my old laptop.

:)

 

Unable to access folders in external hard drive

Hi,

Thank you for posting in Microsoft Community, we appreciate your interest in Windows 10.

As you are unable to access the files and folders from external hard drive, do let us know the following to assist you better:

• Have you logged in as an administrator?
• How have you connected the hard drive to Windows 10 computer?
• Were you able to see any error code along with the error message?
• Is this issue specific only with the files and folders in the external drive?
• Have you tried to access these files on different computer?

Reply to the post with required information and brief description about the issue, we will be happy to help you further.

 

Quick Access not searching Pictures folder

Summary, that last suggestion didn't work.

• I moved the pictures to another folder temporarily.

• Then I tried to remove the Pictures folder with option one at Add or Remove Folders from This PC in Windows 10 | Windows 10 Tutorials. Even after rebooting, the Pictures folder remained.
• So I tried using option two. Same thing: reboot >> Pictures folder still there.

• Since there were no troubleshooting steps for this scenario, just for the heck of it, I ran through the restore steps. Copied some pictures into the Pictures folder, ran a Quick Access search and initial problem remains: Searching all of QA doesn't find any files in Pictures folder, running search on just the Pictures folder does. I want to run a global search and find matching files in any/all of the Documents, Music, Videos, and Pictures folders.

That article dates from 2015 and I'm guessing is out of date. I hope it didn't create potential future problems in my registry.

Bottom line: I'm still looking for a fix.

 

Error Access Denied while acessing the folders from User> AppData folders on Windows 10

Hi,

Welcome to Microsoft Community and thank you for posting. We appreciate your interest in Windows 10.

I understand the inconvenience you are facing with access files and folders.

Do let us know the complete error code/ error message of this issue?

As you have tried with providing the permissions to each folder and issue persists after the restart, try the below and check if it helps.

Step 1: Try to disable the third party anti-virus software if installed any and check.

Step 2: As, as a work around, I suggest you to enable the built-in administrator account and check if this issue persists.

Steps to enable Built-in administrator.

• • Press Windows + X key together on your desktop screen.
  • Click on Command Prompt (admin) to open Command Prompt.
    
  • Type the following command and hit Enter:

• net user administrator /active: yes (Check for the spaces)

　　　4. Now log off from the current user and try to login to the administrator account that is enabled.　　

Note: Please follow the same steps and type net user administrator /active: no to disable admin account after the troubleshooting is done.　

Step 3: I suggest you to refer to the below Microsoft article with 3-diffrent issues related to accessing the files and folders and check if it helps.

"Access Denied" or other errors when you access or work with files and folders in Windows

(Applies to Windows 10 as well)

Hope this information helps. Reply to the post with an updated status of the issue to assist you further.