I have an external drive that I use between my work and two other laptops. Starting last friday (because I don't know if it is something I, or someone else did) on two of them, whenever I plug the external drive in, it just shows (in My Computer) NTFS below the drive, and doesn't give access to it.
On one of them, everytime I plug it in, it wants to to a "check disc for errors" after which it acts fine.
From what I gathered it has something to do with NTFS file permissions, but I cannot understand what I need to do to make those files on the external disc, including the external disc itself, accessible to everyone regardless of the operating system they're using and their user name data.
Does anyone know how to make the partition accessible to everyone, regardless of the operating system?
Answers to @fixer1234 questions from comments in the hope it will help diagnose the problem
Is it currently accessible to anyone (including via admin privileges) on the problem computers?
No. I am admin on one of those problem computers (my private one), and cannot access it. On the other one (my work computer) I am not admin.
All of the computers are running Win 7?
Yes, all computers are running Win7 32 bit with the exception of my work computer which is running 64 bit.
Does the same problem happen with any other external drive on the problem computers?
I only have this one, but the problem does not occur with regular USB sticks.
Anything the two problem computers have in common that the non-problem computer doesn't?
On the problem computers, did you try a live Linux session to see if you could access the drive?
No, sorry. Have no experience with Linux whatsoever.