Location is not available, Drive is not accessible, Access Denied - Fixed and Resolved

TLDR: Set drive permission to include "everyone" and grant "full control" permission.

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One morning I client brought me an external drive with the complaint they could not access the content. The drive shows up in windows explorer with no bar for used space and free space.

drive with no size information

When the drive is clicked it displays access denied error.

Location is not available, access denied

The drive showed a disk size of zero in properties

0 bytes

The reserved partition was however okay and displaying contents.

HOW I FIXED IT

CHECK DISK
I first checked if the drive was physically intact by opening a command prompt as administrator.
I changed to the drive letter (drive: and enter)
I then typed "dir" to list the drive contents, they listed successfully.
This test established that something was preventing windows or explorer from accessing the drive and its content.



You may run a disk check via the command prompt to check the integrity of the disk as an option (chkdsk Drive-letter: /F /R). Note this did not resolve the problem

CHECK DRIVE PERMISSIONS
So I sought to check permissions as advised in a post I read.
Inside windows Explorer, right-clicking on the drive and selecting properties brought up the disk properties dialogue but the security tab was missing

Disk properties - security

DISPLAY SECURITY TAB
The way to get around this is to go to the disk management feature of windows in the control panel. Go to 'control panel', 'Administrative Tools', 'Computer Management', 'Disk Management' to display all disks and partitions in the computer.

Once there, right-click on the disk in question and select 'properties'. That should bring up the properties dialogue with the 'security' tab displaying.

MODIFY DISK USERS (FIX DISK PERMISSIONS)
View the security tab of a working partition or disk for comparison.

Security tab


Make sure the same users are present in the offending disk or partition.
Also make sure their permissions are set to allow

Modifying permissions


If  users in other working drives are not present on the offending drives, add them by clicking on 'edit', then on the next dialogue click on 'add', and on the next dialogue type name of the desired users and click 'check name'. This should display the desired user. Click 'ok' to add the user and ensure permission has been set to 'allow', 'full control' (tick full control).

Click on 'ok' on each dialogue box to apply the changes. Your drive should now be fully accessible without errors.

Ideally set "everyone" as user with "full control" permission.

Run another disk check after to ensure all is  well.


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