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Windows Vista Files on external drive "locked" when using vista

Discussion in 'Legacy Windows' started by mattthejanitor, 2008/08/14.

  1. 2008/08/14
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi,

    I have a similar problem to the person who posted this thread "XP Photoshop CS3 files being locked in Vista " on 21 March 2008. Unfortunately my problem was not solved with the "read only" attribute.

    I have an external drive that was previously attached to a machine running XP. Since I plugged the external drive into my new laptop running Vista I am no longer able to save over files on the external drive. I am working mostly with Photoshop and Illustrator files but the problem seems to be with all file types.

    When trying to save a file in photoshop opened from the external drive I get the following error:

    Could not save F:\............. .psd because the file is locked. Use the "Properties" command in windows explorer to unlock the file.

    As I said I have checked and none of the files are "read only "

    Please help.
     
    mattthejanitor,
    #1
  2. 2008/08/14
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Arie,
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  4. 2008/08/14
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    No luck

    Thanks for the quick reply. I tried taking ownership of one of the folders on my external drive and it made no difference...
     
    mattthejanitor,
    #3
  5. 2008/08/14
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Have you tried File > Save As using a different name?
     
    PeteC,
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  6. 2008/08/14
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Yes, I can open the files off my external drive and save them with a different file name but this is not ideal as it affects all the files on my external drive - about 120G's worth...
     
    mattthejanitor,
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  7. 2008/08/14
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    If the external drive is formatted in the NTFS format, I expect that is the reason. FAT32 is the formatting recommended for USB (and Firewire?) external drives.

    If you want to test saving a file to your internal HDD and checking that there is no problem saving any changes...you should be able to move them all your internal drive (space?), reformat the drive and then move them back. A proviso is that FAT32 cannot take individual files larger than 4GB.

    You should have a backup method in case the drive ever fails. Have you saved them to DVD disks as well?

    Matt
     
    mattman,
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  8. 2008/08/14
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Matt, I must disagree - I have just copied a Photoshop .psd file from my backup external drive (NTFS) to another external drive (NTFS) - opened it in Photoshop, edited it and saved it back to the external without a problem Double checked to be sure :)
     
    PeteC,
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  9. 2008/08/15
    mattman

    mattman Inactive Alumni

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    Hi Pete,
    Only a maybe, but I might expect it is a strong possibility. The reason I suspect...because the drive was "set up" on a Win XP system. I won't take a bet with you though, you'd have all my money after a while :D:D

    Matt
     
    mattman,
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  10. 2008/08/15
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks for the advice. I will try reformatting the drive from NTFS to FAT32 and look into getting a backup drive for my backup drive...

    I suspect the problem has something to do with the fact that I was originally working on a laptop running vista - which was stolen. I moved my external drive to a desktop running XP while waiting for the replacement and now I am working on the new laptop running vista...
     
    mattthejanitor,
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  11. 2008/08/15
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    Sorry, but that is not a reason. Windows XP & Vista both handle NTFS. The difference is that NTFS has file/folder permissions which FAT32 doesn't have.

    FAT32 is only recommended for smaller USB drives, but for larger drives there's no better format than NTFS (IMHO).

    I still believe this is either a problem of ownership permissions, read/write permissions or else a problem with the specific program. Lots of complaints can be found on Adobe software & files on external drives.
     
    Arie,
    #10
  12. 2008/08/15
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Thanks. I was about to start formatting my drive. I have also found a lot of similar complaints but can't seem to solve my problem by changing ownership/ permissions.

    The problem is not specific to Adobe files. I have tried this with Macromedia Freehand files and even jpegs.

    I'll keep looking.
     
    mattthejanitor,
    #11
  13. 2008/08/15
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    What do your security properties look like? Below is from my external drive:
     

    Attached Files:

    Arie,
    #12
  14. 2008/08/15
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Mine looks similar - doesn't look like i can attach a screen shot so will have to write it out:

    Group or Usernames:

    Everyone
    CREATOR OWNER
    SYSTEM
    Administrators (Matt-PC\Administrators)
    Users (Matt-PC\ Users)

    The bottom half is the same but when SYSTEM and Administrators (Matt-PC\Administrators) are highlighted - all options are checked expect for "special permissions "
     
    mattthejanitor,
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  15. 2008/08/16
    Arie

    Arie Administrator Administrator Staff

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    To be honest I have no idea. I would play around with Use Xcacls.exe to modify NTFS permissions.

    As you can see, my permissions include the Authenticated Users group, I don't know if adding that would make a difference.
     
    Arie,
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  16. 2008/08/16
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    From an earlier post ...
    Try an experiment ....

    Copy a file or two from the external to an internal drive.

    Delete the same files from the external drive.

    Copy the files back to the external drive .

    Any change to the locked problem?
     
    PeteC,
    #15
  17. 2008/08/17
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Hi Pete,
    I tried that and it worked perfectly. Thanks for the help!
     
    mattthejanitor,
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  18. 2008/08/17
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    Magic :) Thanks for the update.
     
    PeteC,
    #17
  19. 2008/08/18
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    I guess I spoke to soon...

    After trying that experiment I proceeded to copy all my files across - delete the old ones and copy the files back. Now it seems I cannot access any of these files.

    If I try and open a jpeg now it says I do not have permission to access this file location. For other files (eg. Macromedia Freehand files) it says " cannot convert document because read or write access has been denied "

    I have been back through the whole process of changing permissions but with no luck. I can still, however, copy the files back onto my laptop drive and they open with no problem.

    Do you think formatting my external drive will make a difference?
     
    mattthejanitor,
    #18
  20. 2008/08/18
    mattthejanitor

    mattthejanitor Inactive Thread Starter

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    Sorry, I seemed to have solved the problem. Tried something different changing the permissions and it has worked. Thanks
     
    mattthejanitor,
    #19
  21. 2008/08/18
    PeteC

    PeteC SuperGeek Staff

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    So Arie was right in the first place - a question of permissions :) Glad to hear the problem is resolved.
     
    PeteC,
    #20

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