HELP!

[Keef]

I desperately need the help of someone knowledgeable in the inner workings of Windows 7 (I suspect Vista is the same).

Last night (like, 5 hours ago) I decided to tidy up the confusing mess that is my local network. I deleted the "Homegroup" that I don't use. That seems at a stroke to have killed both my desktop and my laptop (both running Win 7).

They both boot OK, but give a few error messages on the way to the desktop. All the usual icons etc are there,. However, I can't access anything. Most of the features in Control Panel don't work, and I can't access any hard drives except the old XP Pro one. I get told that the administrator has banned me.

If I boot the XP Pro installation, that works but can't access any other drives - although the others were its data drives before Win 7 came along.

Same on both machines.

Knoppix (Linux on a CD) can boot them happily, and see and read all the drives. However, it won't write them - or, so far, copy them. I suspect I need an empty drive for it to do that.

Does anyone know how to tell it to let me back in to my hard drives?

I did try a "reinstall update", but that tells me it has to be run from the Win 7 desktop, and that won't let me run a command on a CD drive. I can do a "wipe and reinstall", but since the data backups are between the two machines, and on a USB drive off the main machine - which is also "locked", I can't get at the backups.



Desperate Keef!
(Writing this on the old Linux clunker)

[Jofm5]

From what I recall reading online........

If you delete the homegroup all the security rights that were associated with the homegroup are removed thus leaving you unable to use those devices.

The solution is to right click on the drive you cant access go to the security tab and add your username in with appropriate priveleges.

I would have a look myself but I dont have W7 on this machine at the moment and my laptop which is dual boot is sitting on my desk at work.

[Loose rivets]

I can see Properties - Security etc., on a working W7 drive, but of course there may be an access issue even for that now that you're locked out.


I've asked someone who would know someone, if they would be kind enough to help, but timescale is unknown.

R

[Loose rivets]

Keef Check your PMs

[Keef]

Many thanks, LR. Much appreciated.

I've reinstalled Win 7 on the laptop, and used that to unlock the USB backup drive. Had the USB backup caddy been IDE, I think I could have done the same trick with the main and second HD in the desktop. It is, of course, SATA.

So do I nip down the road and buy a 3.5 inch IDE caddy, or do I wait till the appropriate time to make a telephone call? Decisions!

Meanwhile, it's an exciting day of reinstalling all the software on the laptop :(

WARNING TO ALL! DON'T create Homegroups in Win 7 (or, I suspect, Vista). If you already did, whatever you do, don't delete them!

[Keef]

Many thanks to Loose Rivets!

Problem sorted!

Microsoft don't have a fix. I hope they're working on it, before Win 7 hits the streets and Homegroups kill lots of machines!

I found a useful cheat: it actually took under two hours to sort the desktop. Rather than wipe-and-install, I installed a second Win 7 to a spare partition on the machine. I booted to that, used that to "unlock" all the other drives, then ran "repair" on the Win 7 DVD to find and reactivate the original Win 7 installation, and all is back to normal.