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Will SchmidtFlag for United States of America

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Access denied error on SSD Drive

A Customer of mine brought in a desktop computer that I had installed a Samsung SSD several months ago that will not boot to hard drive.  I took it out and plugged it into my computer and I get an Access Denied error when it tries to read the drive.  I ran a test on the drive and the test showed the drive to still be good.  It appears that somehow the files on the drive have been modified so that they cannot be accessed.  What do I need to do to correct this?

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Kimputer

Try to copy the files (just a few, as a test) from a live Linux boot media. If that all works, it's could be a really weird Windows access rights issue (though Windows usually boots because it starts with the highest local system rights).
So use this method to at least save all your important files. Next thing could be to just format and start over. If during installation weird things keep happening, the SSD is not trustworthy anymore and needs warranty replacement.
Any chance the drive is encrypted? You might have to go back to their laptop BIOS and check settings there.
Download a Copy of the Samsung Magician to look at the drive.
It should be able to give you a full report on what is occurring.
https://www.samsung.com/semiconductor/minisite/ssd/product/consumer/magician/ 
nothing weird. if you moved the drive to a different computer, the files are owned by users on the other computer. there is no reason why you would have the privileges to view them. but as an admin, you do have the ability to take ownership of the files. beware, this will break stuff should you move the drive back to the original computer.
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To Skullnobrains: I know what you are saying and I do this all the time, so yes, I have to change permissions before reading the files, but this is different.  The problem I have is that my computer will see the drive but that is all.  I am uploading a picture of how it shows on the computer so you can see what I mean.
To Brian B: What setting do I need to look for?  Also, why would the BIOS settings suddenly change? and yes, the files could be encrypted.
To Wesley Miller: I did not think of that. I will try that this evening.
To Kimputer: Can you explain how I can attempt to see the SSD drive in Linux Mint? I uploaded a picture of the desktop in Linux but I am not familiar with this OS, so I am not sure were to go from here.
User generated image

To Skullnobrains: I know what you are saying and I do this all the time, so yes, I have to change permissions before reading the files, but this is different.  The problem I have is that my computer will see the drive but that is all.  I am uploading a picture of how it shows on the computer so you can see what I mean.
To Brian B: What setting do I need to look for?  Also, why would the BIOS settings suddenly change? and yes, the files could be encrypted.
To Wesley Miller: I did not think of that. I will try that this evening.
To Kimputer: Can you explain how I can attempt to see the SSD drive in Linux Mint? I uploaded a picture of the desktop in Linux but I am not familiar with this OS, so I am not sure were to go from here.
User generated image

I installed the Samsung magician and this here is the result i recieved.  On all of the options on the left I get the same message as what you see in the pictureUser generated image
Any Linux distro has a file manager/explorer, just open it, look at the mounted disk. If it's not mounted, something is so very wrong (the startup logs in Linux will probably show errors), you can't really get the data off this drive. You can try to use some file recovery software, but if that doesn't work, format and see how it behaves during full Windows install.
Could've been some freak electronic accident, could've been a Windows bug, or could just be hardware that's starting to malfuction (and will get worse over time). You can't really tell for now, so when you start using it again, BACKUP more often.
in linux mint, i would just click on any of the icons in the right lower corner; one should be the file manager
linux mint has many different file managers, but the standard one i believe is Nemo
look if this helps :  https://learnlinuxandlibreoffice.org/4-set-up-linux-mint/4-3-set-up-and-use-the-mint-file-manager

i use mostly the ubuntu  live cd : https://ubuntu.com/tutorials/try-ubuntu-before-you-install#1-getting-started 
i find it easier to use
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skullnobrains

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Yes, I did try taking kownership of the drive and it worked and so I managed to back up all the data on the drive.  But I still could not get it to boot up so I just formated the disk and re-installed.  It gave me no issues during the installation and so I am back up and running-just need to get the programs back on.
Now the question is: what happened and why? and will it happen again?

by the way some day I would like to take the time to learn Linux.  I just couldn't catch on to it this morning.

As I mentioned before:

Could've been some freak electronic accident, could've been a Windows bug, or could just be hardware that's starting to malfuction (and will get worse over time)

For now, I'm probably leaning towards a Windows bug. But only time will tell.
Isnt that what happens if the drive is encrypted?
Bitlocker perhaps?

Here are some ideas on how to recover the password https://www.m3datarecovery.com/bitlocker-drive-data-recovery/unlock-bitlocker-without-password-recovery-key.html
(I don't think this breaks EE rules - please delete the link, if it does)
taking ownership of the volume was what solved the access denied issue you were asking about in this thread. again, this is expected behaviour, not a failure of some sort.

as to why the drive previously would not boot, you do not provide enough information for even a wild guess. the only info you provide is it did not boot any more, which can happen for a crazy number of reasons. i am unsure there is much of a point now you formatted but feel free to post whatever you remember. unless there is something specific, we'll probably each come up with 12 different reasons, though.

@gerald : if bitlocker encryption could be trivially bypassed by taking ownership of the drive, they would not sell much. my trust in bitlocker is very limited but it cannot be THAT bad. imho, your link is safe with EE given the contents, but that is just my personal opinion.
My post was a bit tongue in cheek, it was really to show the OP that breaking the encryption was going to be hard, very hard, probably impossible to those outside the intelligence agencies 
yes. but since the op was able to revover the files, it was not encrypted. fyi, if a memory dump is present, it actually gets easy. i have never done any decent bitlocker cryptanalysis or enough research on the subject. brute force is apparently impractical. let s just hope it is more secure than aes.