"Read Only" Problem

[pompeystato]

Hi all

My old computer’s hard drive gave up on me and I bought a new system, which has Windows Vista already installed. All my files are safely saved on my external drive.

I have reinstalled my Office 2003 disk and plugged in my external drive but all the files on it show up in ‘Read only’ mode.

Even if I create a new document and save it to the external drive, that also turns into ‘Read only’ as well, although it will save in ‘My Documents’ fine.

Help! What can I do to get rid of the ‘Read only’ bug? I can't get any work done.

I suspect it’s a ‘Vista’ problem rather that an ‘External Drive’ problem and just needs a box ticking, but where?

 

[pompeystato]

I think I’ve fixed it!

I went to ‘My Computer’ and then right clicked on the external drive and went to ‘properties’ at the bottom.

I clicked on the ‘Security tab’ and then the ‘Edit’ button after first making sure ‘Everyone’ was highlighted in the ‘Group of user names’ list.

I then clicked ‘Full control’ in the list and ticks came up in the ‘Allow’ column from ‘full control’ down.

I then opened up a file in the external drive and the ‘Read only’ tag in the title bar had disappeared. Magic!