I installed a couple of programs and all of a sudden all of the files and folders within my C:\ drive seem to have been changed to read only access and I can't change the attributes for some of the folders. I first discovered this issue when trying to
create a Visual Studio project. I managed to change the read only status of the target folder and was eventually allowed to create the folder.
The events that occurred before I started having this were as follows:
- Last week Windows seemed fine was acting normally.
- I installed Poker Stars Client and Hold Em Manager 2. (This also installed postGre SQL. Not sure if relevant but postGre is causing an issue explained later)
- Problems with Hold Em Manager 2 meant having to find upgrade files and installers.
- Poker Stars and Hold Em Manager 2 start working correctly and no problems.
- Couple of days after I come back to do some dev work and Visual Studio won't let me add a project.
- I also get an error when I open the C:\ drive in explorer saying the Recycle bin for this drive is corrupt and would I like to empty it. This has been intermittent and ongoing since.
- Read only changed on target folder of solution and Visual Studio works fine.
- As part of a console app I am writing a log file is written to the C:\ drive but this errors and citing ACCESS DENIED
- I investigate and find that all files within C:\ drive are marked as read only and I cannot change the status
- I tried to update the owner of certain folders so that I could add permissions for "Everyone"
- Updates have failed citing ACCESS DENIED
- I come back to run Hold Em Manager 2 and the Error I am getting is that the postGre SQL database connection is failing.
Now I have done a lot of searching around and tried a few things and nothing seems to have corrected the issue. So I resorted to doing a system restore to a point about a week before all this started.
On starting the system restore my computer tells me it is initialising and then switches to a blank purple screen and reads "System Restore Initialising...". It hangs here and does not change. i left it for 40 minutes and this failed. On reading other
support questions I did a hard reset and rebooted the system.
When I hit the desktop I am presented with a dialog explaining that the restore failed.
I tried to restore to another point but the same thing happened.
I can now still boot the system and can open Visual Studio, SQL server and do my dev work as normal. Everything else seems to be working fine except for Hole Manager 2 which is reporting the postGre SQL connection error.
My assumption is that one of the installs has messed up the User Access control. I also think that digging out the correct folders that Hold Em Manager 2 is trying to access and changing the status from read only will maybe allow that program to work
but that does not solve the root issue of not being able to change the User Groups, Owner and access to/of files and filders and my C:\ drive.
I'm at a bit of a loss and as system restore doesn't seem to want to work I can't just return to good configuration.
Where do I start looking to solve this? I think I'm going mad!
Using Windows 8 on a Dell Inspiron
Not sure what other info needed but I can post whatever is required.
Cheers
UPDATE:
After a quick look into the postgreSQL issue ut seems the service wan't started and neither was secondary user logon. The secondary user service started when I started it, but the postgreSQL service is reporting ERROR 1069: The service did not start due
to a log on failure.
Additional content from duplicate thread:
Windows 8 cannot login, completely unusable
Problems started last week with UAC and getting access to certain folders. See my other question at http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_8-security/user-access-control-and-system-restore-problems/16769b7b-5df8-46c9-a06a-bdcac568c9f2
Anyway current state of affairs is this:
- Cannot log into my user profile. Getting User Profile service failed login, User Profile could not be loaded
- I have activated the in built administrator account but when I log in I get two messages. One a pop up message stating that the Recycle bin is corrupted on the C:\ drive and another in the sys tray saying I've been signed in with the default profile for the system, please check the event log
- The event logs say:
Error, Windows cannot load the user's profile but has logged you on with the default profile for the system
Warning, Windows cannot copy file \\?\C:\Users\Default to location..... (DETAIL - Access is denied) - I have looked into changing the registry entry for my user profile using the admin. I found it to have .bak on the end. I reset the ref count to 0 and the state to 0 and removed .bak from the end of the key name. I then restarted, same issue. When I rebooted again and logged into the admin, I am again logged into system account. The registry entry has returned to its .bak state.
- So next I took my laptop down the road to get some data off it before I continued with troubleshooting.
- We looked into the drive and can see all the files are there and the user profile seems intact (but potentially corrupt)
- My feeling is that the issue is not the profile at all though, and that the User Profile Service cannot start because a recent install has messed up access rights to something. Potentially a service that starts on the same profile that is blocking UPS? The service that comes to mind is the PostGre SQL install I did recently but not sure if this is relevant.
- This issue is also not allowing me to restore to a previous restore point or to the initial Factory Image that came on my Dell Inspiron (Dell Data Safe Recovery). I am met with Error 80070490 (Acess Denied) for all of these (even the options given when you press shift and restart)
Does anyone know if I can look at services running on another profile and stop/start them? Or where to start looking to troubleshoot this?
Or is there a way to disable UAC so I can run a restore using the system account?
HEEEEEEEEEELP!
