I have had my system up and running on 20.04 for a while now. I have shared folders setup on it for my movies and tvshows. I use a windows pc with a vpn to download the videos and save them straight to linux share folders.

I noticed that in my server, I had some folders that showed an X on it stating I didnt own it. I ran

sudo chmod -777 -R /mnt/hdd1/movies
It said it couldnt access that folder. So I ran

sudo chmod -777 -R /mnt/hdd1 and lost access to the folder completely.

I looked it up and ran

sudo chown "user" /mnt/hdd1

Now I can open the folder but I get prompted to enter a password to view the folder.

My share folder is no longer working and the parent folder is now

admin:///mnt/hdd1 when it used to be /mnt/hdd1

Any thoughts?

chmod -777 removes all permission bits.
Try chmod 777 without the dash.

Giving write permissions to everybody might be a bit risky. If that is not your goal, consider using 755 or so.