Do you have challenges with your external hard drive when trying to access it on your computer? Don’t worry, in this tutorial, TheGhanaTech will be showing you the steps on how you can easily fix an external hard drive error “Access is denied” in Windows 10/11.
The “Access is denied” error is one of the commonest technical errors that most windows users normally encounter. A lot of people have been asking questions about how this error normally occurs. Some people even think that their external drive has been corrupted and hacked when feedback pops up saying “Access is denied”.
When your external hard drive becomes inaccessible, don’t rush to format it because you can still have a chance of fixing or repairing it. Formatting your external drive will let you lose all your data saved or stored on the drive.
Technically, the main reason why most storage devices like external hard drives, USB drives, SD, etc get this kind of error is that the device may have a permission issue. If you don’t have Administrator requests on the device, you can’t access the system or the device.
And also, this kind of error is commonly caused by NTFS permissions. The New Technology File System (NTFS) permissions are used in Microsoft Windows NT to protect folders and files on the NTFS file system partition. With these permissions, it provides a secure bond between the local and network access to the file on the device.
How to fix External Drive “Access is denied” in Windows10/11
In this tutorial, I would like you to stay focused and follow the steps carefully to fix your External hard drive error issue without going through any stress.
- Kindly connect your inaccessible external drive to your computer
- Click and Open This PC/My Computer
- Right-click on the inaccessible external hard drive
- Scroll down and select Properties
- Now click on the Security
- Click on the Advanced
- Now, advanced security settings for the drive will pop up
- Click on Add
- Click on Select a principal
- Click on Advanced
- Now, click on Find Now
- Scroll down in the option and search for Everyone
- Select Everyone and click OK
- You will now be taken back to the permission Entry section. That’s where you will see all the basic permission. (I would recommend you to tick on Full control) and click OK
- Now click on Apply, and click OK
- Hurray! You can now access your external hard drive now.
Note: You can send us an email (info@139-144-74-15.ip.linodeusercontent.com) if you are finding difficulties in resolving this issue.
