Sep 26 2009
Windows Home Server – Read Only Permissions
My SBS server developed a hardware fault recently. While I diagnose the fault I needed to move data from the SBS box to my Windows Home Server box. I wanted this to happen fairly quickly and didn’t want to copy via network (network being part of the fault) so I used an external hard drive. Copied the data from SBS to external drive and then from external drive to WHS.
This is where I ran into a problem. Just copied directly to the DATA drive on WHS and then found that permissions on everything I copied was stuffed up – mostly, files were read-only or restricted. WHS seems to lock out most of the permissions controls you’d normally use on SBS to fix this sort of problem and I was at a loss as to how to fix it without access to this mechanism.
Don't copy from external drive straight to the "DATA" drive
Copious Google searching didn’t really find a solution but I picked up enough hints from various sources to try some things. What worked? Use the WHS console to create the share you want. Set permissions in the WHS console. Then, instead of copying directly to “DATAsharesyour new share” you need to copy to the network share name (e.g. \serveryour new share).
Copy to the network share (even though you're on the local computer)
There you go. Hope that saves someone else out there some time and trouble.
