I hope someone out there can help me with a permission settings problem. I, probably for the wrong reasons, was working with the propagation of permissions set on the "E" drive (data only), when I accidently (the idiot part) hit the cancel button when movimg the mouse away. I got a dialog box stating something to the effect that "stopping the propagation of permission settings leads to an inconsistant state... correct the change to achieve a consistant state." Well, I do have an inconsistant state, as I can only access part of this drive from a network. How do you "correct" this change of settings as I had no option to cancel out from the original cancel operation, I had to click the OK button. I was doing this on the "E" drive as a test as I was tired of the "access denied" while trying to gain access to the "C" drive from a networked computer. I know with XP, you can gain access to the "C" drive from a network with the exception of Docs & Settings, Program Files and Windows folders. With Vista the entire "C" drive is not accessable (probably by design), but by replacing inheritable permissions, I thought I could gain some access to the "C" drive as I could with XP by changing these permission sets. Also, why do files or update program files sent accross a network from a Vista machine reach the destination computer corrupted or won't work (will get the "sorry for any inconvenience...but must close" message). I tried this with serveral files, all with the same result. If I copy the same file from the Vista machine via a flash drive and load on the destination machine, the file will work perfectly. Is this also by design, or maybe a bug. Any help greatly appreciated.
Charlie

Hi Charlie, I don't know about why files become corrupted moving through the network, could have something to do with firewall or file sharing? but with regard to going back in time from the accidental cancel, can you use system restore to go an earlier known good configuration? either within vista or in safe mode? Hitting escape at the time you had to click OK may have been another option but that was then, this is now. Try System Restore if possible.
"Charlie Foster"

Katy, Thanks for the reply, but I should have mentioned that I tried system restore with several restore points, but would not restore to previous state. I get a message stating "an error occured... no changes have been made to your files". The "C" drive is ok, it's just the "E" drive with the problem. I guess I could move the data off the drive, reformat , and restore data. It's about 200 gigs of data and would have to span across several drives I have due to the size. I want to avoid doing that as it will be time consuming, and want to learn from my mistake on how to correct, if possible.
Charlie
"katy"

Charlie Foster wrote:

You could try taking ownership of the E:\ and then reassigning permissions choosing to replace existing permissoins. Yesterday I had a directory on my USB drive into which I could add and delete files but could not delete the directory itself. Each time I tried I was told I needed permissions even though I was listed as having full control.
I ended up going to the root (W:\) and taking replacing the ownership and permissions on all sub directories and files. Once done I could delete the directory I wanted to delete.
Right Click E:\ Properties Security Owner Edit Change to your username and Apply
(On the same Security tab) Advanced Permissions Edit Make sure the permissions you want are listed and then check the 'Replace all existing inheritable ......' then click Apply.
Let that run through and see if you have the permissions you're after.

Thanks for the reply, I tried as you suggested and still get the same error messages. Interestingly enough, the first item that cannot apply security settings looks to be a registry value, then followed by a file type. Also, now every time I boot-up, I get a message :the recycle bin for E/ is corrupted, do you want to empty the bin for this drive" I guess I have more of a mess than I think. Maybe best solution is to go the long way and remove the data, defrag-reformat-restore data and let that solve the problem.
"Neil Harley"

Charlie Foster wrote:

Maybe try chkdisk first?