Why can't I use the command prompt as a admin?

Question

I just got the new external hard drive for my laptop but it says that it cannot run it, so I try to go into the command prompt to allow and when I do it says you must be on an administrator account to make it work. Which I am but when I try to start the administrator it says access denied.

Answer 1

Boot into Safe mode and retry.

You may create a new user account and check the problem.

In Safe mode -open Command prompt and copy-paste the following:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

followed by:

Dism /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Answer 2

I find your question confusing. I don't understand what a "new external hard drive" has to do with "Why can't I use the command prompt as a admin?". Is your account an administrator or isn't it?

Are you able to launch cmd.exe with "run as administrator" or not? Or are you trying to run some other program? Why do you want to run a command prompt anyway? What command will you execute? Do you see the new drive in Disk Management? Is it formatted?

I would suggest that you post some screen images of the errors so that we can see what you are doing.

Answer 3

Hello @Keagan Kailing ,

I would suggest you below troubleshooting steps.

1. Are you able use different external drives other than this one.
2. Please start your computer from safe mode and see if you are able access command prompt with admin access.
3. Is your computer joined to any AD domain or its in Workgroup PC.

Please free feel to reply back and up vote if it helps.

Thanks, Prakash

Answer 4

Hello @Keagan Kailing ,

First of all, you need to check the device BIOS if the external hard drive is being recognized, as most of the time the problem may be in the BIOS.

In some cases the hard drive is not recognized immediately, so I recommend that you look for the device manufacturer, in this case the computer, to check with them if you need to do some kind of BIOS unlock before, since you said you are the user device administrator.

Regarding the error in the command prompt, I recommend that you check if you are really on a current version of windows 10, as this may simply be a system bug and not an indication that you are not an administrator. To check the windows 10 version follow the step below

To check the version: Press the Windows key + R and type: winver and press Enter

If any version other than 21h1 appears, follow the steps below to update to the latest version.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Step 1: Access the above link and select the Update Now option, an application will be downloaded in which you must install on your computer.

Step 2: when installing you must open the application and the download, verification and installation of the recent version will start.

Step 3: After you will be asked to restart the device to complete the update, after a few minutes you will have the latest version.

If the answer was helpful, please don't forget to vote up or accept as an answer, thanks.

Yours sincerely,
Samuel