[lufc71]

I recently set about a clean XP install. This included removing a partition prior to formatting the HDD.

During this removal I accidently clicked on my USB external HDD and it unmounted this 'partition'.

I used a free utility called Find and Mount which immediately found and re-mounted this USB drive. Unfortunately, this is only in read-only mode. Of course I can now copy everything off the disk, so recovery is no problem, but I still want to use the USB HDD (it's 300gb) as before. I've tried re-formatting it using Windows and DOS bit it says the disk is read-only. Attrib only shows it as archived not read-only.

Any ideas how to get into this disk??

Many thanks in advance for any help.

[Saviour]

You might want to try taking ownership of the drive/file/folder.

1. Right-click the USB drive you want to take ownership of and select Properties.
2. Click the Security tab, and click OK if a security message appears.
3. Click the Advanced button, then click the Owner tab.
4. In the Name list, click Administrator, or click the Administrator's Group, then click OK.
5. Click Add.
6. In the Enter the object names to select list, type the user or group account that you want to give access to the file/folder/drive. For example, type Administrator.
7. Click OK.
8. In the Group or user names list, click the account that you want, and then select the check boxes of the permissions that you want to assign that user.
9. When you are finished assigning permissions, click OK.

I certainly hope this helps...

[lufc71]

^ Thanks for the reply.

Although I have used numerous methods to get up the properties of this drive, there is never a 'security' tab so I can't get past #1 on your list. But thanks for trying anyway :)

[Saviour]

Sorry...my bad...

If you are running Windows XP Home Edition, you must start the computer in safe mode, and then log on with an account that has administrative rights in order to access the Security tab.

More info can be found here: How to take ownership of a file or folder in Windows XP