Removing "read-only" attributes with secondary hard drive

[l bo]

I bought a Maxtor Shared Storage Drive, my 27G hard drive on my laptop filled up quick. Anyway I noticed all photos and all directories are "read-only". I can uncheck it, it goes through the motions as though the attributes are being changed. However the directories remain "read only". I have toggled between read only checking it and unchecking it with the same results. Folders I have moved from the external drive to my local hard drive suffer from this too.

Because of this problem I can't open RSE, it crashes when trying to access one of the images.

I have re-installed the Maxtor software, disabled my firewall and antivirus software. Not sure what more to do, any ideas? Kind of frustrating.

Thanks.

[lancea]

What operating system are you running? I only know Windows. You say you're changing the attribute of the folder - what happens when you change the attributes of individual files?

[l bo]

I am running windows XP. The individual files (CRW images) aren't read only, just the folder(s) and directories they are located in are.

Another thing that is strange is that when I would check off read only or hidden there is typically a solid black check in a white box. The read only is check is sort of greyed out when I look at it, appearing as though I can not change it. I can and do but it doesn't save and reverts back to read only when I view the attributes again.

[JonathanS]

The grey check generally means that some of the files or folders are read-only and some are not. I am not sure why it would not be removing the read-only from all of the files.

Edit: I just tried it with one of my folders, at first it and all of the contained files (some CRW, some JPEG) were read-only, but then after I tried to unread-only it, it unlocked the files individually but not the folder. Is the same thing happening to you?

Just read your above post, hmm... have you tried unlocking the directroy above the folders you need to unlock?

[l bo]

Just read your above post, hmm... have you tried unlocking the directroy above the folders you need to unlock?

Yeah, folders, sub folders, all of them. When I do this I get a little pop up box showing the changes being made, it seems as though it is unlocking them. The read only is then unchecked. Only when I close it and go back it shows that read only is checked again. I left it open, after I unchecked it and got the same error with RSP. It's strange, I posted a thread in the RSP support forum and the conclusion is that it's a configuration/software issue.

I thought it was RSP, but later determined it is this Read Only attribute I can't seem to correct. A thread with scrren shots of the RSP errors:
http://forum.pixmantec.com/showflat.php/Cat/0/Number/26601/an/0/page/0#26601

[lancea]

Hello I Bo. I'm currently at work (it's 7am) so I'm limited in what I can confirm because our PCs are "locked-down". First, it is normal for the folders to be shown as read-only.

Are your discs formatted as NTFS? I'm wondering if your NTFS file permissions are not set to give you "full control". You should have "full control" on both the folders and the files. This article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304040#XSLTH3125121124120121120120) from Microsoft is quite technical, but it tells you how to turn of simple file sharing so you can change the NTFS permissions. Note that I wouldn't recommend you do this unless your happy with the idea. Hopefully someone will come up with a simpler solution and I'll check the thread again this evening.

[l bo]

Hello I Bo. I'm currently at work (it's 7am) so I'm limited in what I can confirm because our PCs are "locked-down". First, it is normal for the folders to be shown as read-only.

Are your discs formatted as NTFS? I'm wondering if your NTFS file permissions are not set to give you "full control". You should have "full control" on both the folders and the files. This article (http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;en-us;304040#XSLTH3125121124120121120120) from Microsoft is quite technical, but it tells you how to turn of simple file sharing so you can change the NTFS permissions. Note that I wouldn't recommend you do this unless your happy with the idea. Hopefully someone will come up with a simpler solution and I'll check the thread again this evening.

Thanks, I will check that out.

Interesting to note, I can access open and edit the TIFF images stored on this drive with PS Elements, it is RSP that gives me the error..........so I don't know.

Strange, I will check it out thanks.

[CyberDyneSystems]

Try this,
(sorry if you allready have)

Rather than changing attribute to the folders the "grey" check mark means that the folder thinks there are a mix of files within it .. some read only.

Open the folders,. click "Edit" click "select all" ..
Now all files should be highlighted,. Right click one of the files and select properties,. uncheck the "read only" This should change all files to "normal" ...

Do this in all subdirectories etc working your way up the food chain.

Once all files in all sub directories are unchecked,. you'll know becuase the greyed out chack mark will go away.

If this DOESN'T work.. it is most likely because you have hidden files in the directories that are still read only.
In which case you'll have to edit your folder views so nothing is hidden..

I have NO idea why this would crash RSE. patheric bug really.

[lancea]

Sounds like the permissions on your photos are okay especially given your other comments. I'm also assuming that it doesn't matter where the photos are on your disc. RSE still crashes?

I suspect that RSE is crashing because it cannot write (or perhaps read) somewhere else. It shouldn't crash, but there's always things that haven't been tested before the software ships. Programmers call it an "unhandled exception" or "unhandled error" when the program doesn't gracefully deal with errors.

I wonder if you've had a look at the Windows "Event Log"? Open Control Panel, then Administrative Tools and run Event Viewer. Check each of the 3 logs for any entries created by RSE. It will make it much easier if you run (crash!) RSE immediately before running Event Viewer. The most recent entries will be at the top.

My other recommendation is that you do something even more technical, but if you are methodical it shouldn't be too difficult. This will also confirm if there is a problem writing to the folder containing your photos. Go to the Systernals web site and download Filemon (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Filemon.html). Run Filemon and notice that it is logging all reads and writes to your disc. Run RSE and try and open a photo. As soon as it crashes, pause Filemon (but don't close it) and look at the log. If you see "Access denied" or similar text on rows that mention the RSE program, then that's probably your problem. Make sure the folder exists on your disc, and that RSE can read and write it.

If that doesn't identify any problems, you could try running Regmon (http://www.sysinternals.com/Utilities/Regmon.html). It will show you if RSE is trying to read or write the registry and failing. Once again, you will see "access denied" or similar failure messages.

Sorry I can't suggest anything less technical, but these are the things I would do. Filemon and Regmon are extremely useful in my job and have resolved many a problem for me (including application crashes). It can be overwhelming seeing just how much is happening on your PC when you think it's doing nothing, but both utilities have filters that let you search for particular text (like "denied"). Good luck!

[l bo]

Wow thanks for the help. I will try the tips from both posts above and see if it helps. I can use RSE with images stored locally, it's when they have been stored on my external drive at some point and try to open them I get the error and it crashes.

What is puzzeling I can access files on the external drive with PS with no problem, and RSE works with images on my local HD just not when they are, or once were, stored on this external drive.

When I get home tonight I will perform these tests, thanks again.

[foxbat]

It's just windows explorer trying to be helpful and actually being a PITA. The short story is to do what CDS said to clear any read only bit on your files.

The long story is that Windows explorer does not honour the read-only bit on folders at all, it uses it to 'manage' the state of the files contained within. It always displays the grey box "indeterminate" state which is basically trying to say "I've no idea what state the contained files are in because I haven't looked at them but you can flip this check box and I'll do what I think you want". Very confusing because it always makes you think you've got some read only files in there. Folder objects do support the read-only bit and you can set it on and off using the attrib command and the real command line tools such as rmdir will honour it. However explorer will completely ignore it and behave as above.

From your description I think the read-only thing may be a red herring.

Programmers call it an "unhandled exception" or "unhandled error" when the program doesn't gracefully deal with errors.You should hear what our users call it ;)

[lancea]

So - just to be sure:
(1) if you initially put a file directly onto your internal hard disc RSE can display it okay
(2) if you copy the same file to the external disc, RSE crashes when you try to display it
(3) if you then copy the same file back to your internal disc, RSE still crashes

That indicates the the file has got corrupted, or that RSE is caching information and gets confused when you try and open the same file from elsehwere. Perhaps you could try renaming it to see if that makes a difference. Keep a copy of the original on your internal disc throughout, just to confirm that you have no problems reading it still.

One last thing, can you open the same CR2/CRW file in all situations (internal and external discs) using other software (e.g. the Canon software, or BreezeBrowser)? The thing is that RAW programs aren't meant to write to the RAW files, so read-only should be okay. Enjoy your debugging!

[SSquared2000]

RSE and RSP have a known crash/bug when opening files in a read-only environment. The problem happens because RawShooter creates the subdirectory .RWSettings in the image directory. It can't create this directory and, unfortunately, it decides to crash. This has brought up other "unfortunates", like the inability to simply view RAW files located on a CD. You MUST copy them all to your drive first.

This is a known issue and perhaps we can see a fix in a later release. But this problem is why I had mentioned the read-only issue in one of your original posts on this topic.

Rather than individually clicking in each folder for each file, you can open a Command Prompt and use the 'cd' command to change directory to your image location. From there, type: 'attrib -r *.* /s' (do not type the single quotes). This will remove the read-only attribute on all files from the current directory on down. The thing is, I don't think it's an image read-only issue. It has something to do with the folders being read-only and not allowing RSE/P to create the folder.

Try this. From Windows Explorer, search for your image directory. Right-click, select 'New' and select 'Folder'. Does the folder get created?

The only other thing I can think of is to manually create all the same folders. Then, go to each individual old image folder, copy them into the new image folder. Do this separately for each folder. Actually, you should just be able to do a quick one or two and see if that solves the problem.

[CyberDyneSystems]

You should hear what our users call it ;)

MS calls them .. "undocumented features" :lol: