How to Fix “External Hard Drive Access Denied” Error

Many users encounter the access denied to external hard drive issue. There are plenty of ways around this error without the need for expert assistance. But, it’s necessary to first create a backup of your data and then proceed to fix the external hard drive access denied error. The sections below will guide you through the entire process.

Protect Your Data on a Hard Drive With Denied Access

There may be underlying disk corruption or some other issue with your external HDD, that’s preventing access to the drive. Thus, a good move is to first create a backup of the entire drive so that you don’t lose any of your data. You may also be required to format the external hard drive in order to restore access to it.

The easiest way to create a byte level backup of your drive is to use Disk Drill. Not only is it one of the best data recovery apps available on the market, but it also packs a capable Byte-to-byte backup feature that will create a disk image of your entire drive, even if Windows can’t access it. Disk Drill is compatible with almost all external HDDs, whether they’re manufactured by popular brands like Seagate and Western Digital, or lesser known companies.

Here is a tutorial on how to use the Byte-to-byte backup feature:

1. Download Disk Drill and install the program.
2. Connect the external hard drive to your computer.
3. Open Disk Drill and click on the Drive Backup option on the left navigation pane.
4. Select the external hard drive from the list of devices and click the Byte-to-byte backup option.
5. Choose a location for the disk image. Make sure that Format is set to Bytes. Click on OK.
6. Wait for Disk Drill to create the disk image. Also, make sure the location you selected has more space than the size of your external hard disk drive.
7. Click Done once Disk Drill has created the disk image.

1. Open Disk Drill, select the disk drive from the device list, or click on the Attach disk image option to add the disk image you previously created to Disk Drill. Click Search for lost data.
2. Once Disk Drill finishes scanning, click on Review found items.
3. You can view existing files by expanding the Existing Files section as shown below, or proceed to recover deleted files by expanding the other sections and selecting your files in the next step.
4. Select the files you want to recover. You can double-click to preview a file. Click Recover after selection.
5. Choose a recovery destination for the files. Ideally, save them to a different location on your computer than the external hard drive. Click OK.
6. Disk Drill will recover the selected files.

How to Fix “External Hard Drive Access Denied” Error

In this section, we’ll explore various fixes for the external HDD access denied issue. Some of the solutions involve formatting as well as using the Command Prompt, so it’s recommended you follow each fix properly and not skip a single step.

Method 1: Check Your Drive Connection

Often, improperly connected cables or a malfunctioning USB port could be the reasons why you can’t access your external hard disk drive. Here are a few things you can do to determine whether this is the case and fix the problem:

1. Connect your HDD directly to the USB ports on your motherboard.
2. Change the USB cable and reconnect the drive.
3. Connect the external hard drive to another computer and see if the disk shows access denied.

Method 2: Fix the Access Using Windows Security Tab

An effective way to resolve the external hard drive access denied problem is to check the permission settings in Windows and modify them. Essentially, you need to take ownership of the external hard drive and ensure your user account has full permission to read/write data to the drive.

Here is how you can do this on Windows 10/11:

1. Open File Explorer, right-click on the external hard drive and click Properties.
2. In Properties, click on the Security tab. Here, click on Advanced, towards the bottom of the window. This will open the Advanced Security Settings window.
3. Click on Change. Ensure you have administrative rights.
4. In the Object Name text box, type in the name of your user account, then click Check Names. Click OK.
5. Tick the Replace owner on subcontainers and objects checkbox.
6. Click on Add in the Advanced Security Settings window.
7. Click on Select a principal.
8. Similar to step 4 above, type in your user account in the Object Name text box. Click on Check Names and then click OK.
9. Check the Full Control option and click OK.
10. Click OK on the next screen, then close Properties.

(Alternatively) Take the Ownership With CMD command (takeown)

If you’re comfortable using Windows Command Prompt, you can use the takeown command to take ownership of the external hard drive. It could be that there is access denied to a folder on the external hard drive, instead of the entire drive. The takeown command can be used to resolve this, as well as take ownership of the entire drive:

1. Type “cmd” in Windows Search (Windows Key + S) and right-click on Command Prompt > Run as administrator.
2. Now, type the following command and press Enter: takeown /F X:\ /r. Replace X: with the drive letter of the external hard disk drive.
3. Finally, to change ownership of the drive, type icacls X:\* /grant Everyone:F /t and press Enter. Again, X needs to be replaced with the drive letter.

Method 3: Check the Drive for Corruption With Error Checking Tool

Windows has a disk error checking feature that you can run if your disk shows access denied. While it may not completely fix the external HDD access denied error, it can help determine drive corruption.

Here is how to run the error checking utility in Windows:

1. Open File Explorer.
2. Right-click on the external HDD and click Properties.
3. In Properties, click on the Tools tab and then click Check. You will need administrative privileges.
4. On the next prompt, click Scan and Repair. Wait for the scan to be over and then click Close.

Method 4: Format External Hard Drive

One of the most effective ways to fix the external hard drive access denied error, is to simply format it. But what of your data? Well, if you use Quick Format to format the drive and subsequently scan the drive using a data recovery program, you can get back all your data easily.

Here is how to Quick Format a drive:

1. Press Windows Key + R to launch the Run application.
2. Type diskmgmt.msc in the text box and press Enter to launch Disk Management.
3. Right-click on the external drive and click Format. Click yes on the confirmation prompt.
4. In the Format options menu, ensure that Perform a Quick Format is ticked and press OK. Click Yes on the next prompt as well.
5. Windows will format the external hard drive.

Now, simply scan the external hard drive using the instructions outlined in the section above, to recover your data.

While it is unlikely, if none of the methods above fixed the access denied error on your external hard drive, your only option is to contact one of the many professional data recovery services to get back your data and fix the drive.

FAQ

Conclusion

The access denied error can be fixed using the quick, easy fixes listed in the sections above. However, it’s always best to practice good data backup etiquette, so that you don’t lose your data in the process of fixing your drive.