USB Drive access denied in Windows 7

Question

I have this new flash drive in my office Win 7 machine where I am unable to copy files/folders.

takeown /F E:\ says Access is denied and when I try to change/add users in the Properties> Security > Advanced window it says 'access is denied'. I am pretty sure that I am added to Administrator group and have admin rights on the PC i.e. I can run cmd on admin/elevated mode.

What am I missing here?

Solution

Is there a local or Group policy that prevents such access? Many companies disable removable media such as USB drives.

You could run the RSOP MSC snapoin or the GPresult command line tool to see what policies may be applied to your system

Comments

[AnBisw]

OK, I checked the Removable storage access in Group policy editor and not of those look like enabled i.e. state is 'Not Configured'.

[Dave M]

Are you chcking local policies only? Is there a Active Directory Domain? If so there could be GPOs that apply and ou do not see in a local policy. Have you run RSOP?

[AnBisw]

There is no policies in RSOP as well. Cannot see anything related to Mass storage devices there.

[AnBisw]

I think there is an AD Domain controller since I can see it in nslookup. Could this restriction be placed there instead? If so then is there a workaround?

[Dave M]

There is no workaround and there is likley a good reason for the policy if it exists. A call to your support desk will give you the answer but if such devices are banned, they will be unlikley to do anything.

[AnBisw]

Nevermind, I already found a workaround. Thanks for your responses.

[DavidPostill]

@Annjawn You should add your workaround as an answer to benefit others with the same problem. Please read Can I answer my own question?

[AnBisw]

@DavidPostill unfortunately the workaround is not answer worthy. I now use a cloud drive from my office laptop which is also connected to my laptop. That doesn't sound like an exciting workaround or I should say alternative. :)