I have 3 drives: 20gb for the os, 160 gb for my documents, and a 250 for
video/music etc.

After a clean install, all the files on the second and third drives have an
Unknown owner, and I keep getting administrator prompts when i
move/delete/etc.

What would happen if I went into the properties of D: for example, and set
the the owner to myself? (Instead of doing so for each folder on the drive)

Will there be any ramifications in the disk management applet or anything?

(I don't mind if the os gets toast - I am am testing after all, but I'd hate
to mess up my data drives)

I am on Vista RC1

Hello,

Taking ownership of something in most cases is unecessary. The only things
ownership entitles you to do is modify permissions on the thing you have
ownership of. It does NOT give you access to the thing. For example, you can
take ownership of a folder and still not have access to it. The only thing
different about the situation after taking ownership of it is that you can
change permissions on the thing to GIVE you permission to it - but this is
an additional step.

Now, there are some cases where folders have granted certain permissions
explicitly to their OWNER - for example, a folder may say "grant my owner
read/write access". In this case, if you are DUAL BOOTING and the owner of a
folder happens to be your account on one of the other OS's, if you change
the owner, then you may no longer have access to that folder from the
original OS! In this case, changing the owner can have a very nasty side
effects.

The best solution is not to change ownership of any files; instead, simply
add a permission via the security tab to give yourself access to the files.

The propper place to add these permissions is on the FOLDERS that contain
the files you need access to. You should never change permissions on a DRIVE
if you have an operating system installed onto that drive. The only time you
should change permisions on a drive is if it is used only for storing data,
which may be your situation.

Also, you should never change permissions on an operating-system folder,
such as program files, windows, users, etc, or any file installed by the
operating system - doing this can have signifigant side effects. (It is ok
to change permissions of folders inside your user profile directory tho,
such as documents and pictures).

But, to specifically answer your question, changing the ownership of only
the drive itself and not the files inside it should not affect anything.
However, if you choose to propogate this ownership change to all the
folders/files in the drive, and are dual booting (or have multiple users on
a single OS), you may find you have difficulty accessing those files from
other operating systems / users.

These permissions do not affect disk management.


--
- JB

Windows Vista Support Faq
http://www.jimmah.com/vista/

Thanks Jimmy. That was a great answer. I have kept the same "One drive for
the operating system, one or two for data" system for years, and never
worried about ownership until Vista. The only reason I care is because of all
the UAC prompts when deleting/moving files that I do not have the correct
permission for. They are indeed simply data drives without any operating
system files on them.

I gave up dual booting its all or nothing with my personal machine.

snip
The only reason I care is because of all
the UAC prompts when deleting/moving files that I do not have the correct
permission for. They are indeed simply data drives without any operating
system files on them.

Sounds good ... you should be able to simply add a single permission to your
data drive(s) that gives your specific username full control, and this should
remove the UAC prompts. You should not have to tell Windows to "replace
existing permissions" or any of those advanced options in this case - you
should be able to use the normal, simple security tab interface to do this,
with all of the default options.

- JB