Permissions error when attaching a database: "Cannot access the specified path"

Connecting to the server by Windows Authentication worked for me. I don't know if that is possible in your case.


As Rogitel says about, this could be related to how you have logged in to SSMS itself, rather than the privilege level of the application.

It seems as though, if your user does not have the "sysadmin" role, then they will not have sufficient access to the filesystem on the machine in order to open the file browser.

Setting aside the security concerns for one moment....

In order to grant this role;

  1. Log in to SSMS using Windows Authentication
  2. Navigate to Security->Logins
  3. Either double Click, or Right Click and select Properties on the user you're interested in .
  4. In the "Select a page" box, select "Server Roles"
  5. Make sure that the "sysadmin" role is selected
  6. Press Ok to save the change and close the dialog
  7. Exit SSMS
  8. Reopen SSMS and login as the User you wanted, and you should now have sufficient Privileges to browse.