Maintaining Changed Permissions on External HDDs in Windows 10

Introduction

In Windows 10, managing file permissions on external hard drives can be a common task for users. Sometimes, you might need to change the permissions on your external hard drive for various reasons, such as sharing files with others or protecting your data. However, when you disconnect and reconnect the external hard drive, the changed permissions might not be restored. In this article, we will discuss how to maintain changed permissions on an external hard drive in Windows 10.

Understanding File Permissions

Before we dive into the solution, let's first understand what file permissions are and how they work in Windows 10. File permissions determine which users or groups have access to a file or folder and what they can do with it. For example, you can grant read, write, or modify permissions to users or groups.

Changing File Permissions on an External Hard Drive

To change file permissions on an external hard drive in Windows 10, follow these steps:

1. Connect the external hard drive to your computer.
2. Right-click on the folder or file you want to modify and select Properties.
3. Go to the Security tab and click on Edit.
4. Add or modify the permissions for the users or groups as needed.
5. Click Apply and then OK to save the changes.

Maintaining Changed Permissions

By default, Windows 10 does not maintain changed permissions on external hard drives when they are disconnected and reconnected. However, you can change this behavior by following these steps:

1. Right-click on the My Computer icon on your desktop or in File Explorer and select Properties.
2. Go to the Advanced system settings tab and click on the Advanced button under the Performance section.
3. Go to the File Systems tab and find your external hard drive in the list.
4. Check the box next to Allow file and folder permissions to be inherited when a new file is created in this folder.
5. Click Apply and then OK to save the changes.

In this article, we discussed how to maintain changed file permissions on an external hard drive in Windows 10. We covered the basics of file permissions and how to change them on an external hard drive. We also showed you how to enable inheritance of file permissions to ensure that the changes are maintained even when the external hard drive is disconnected and reconnected.