Hard Drive Randomly Locked - No Write Permissions?
Jul 18, 2013
Something terrible happened to my computer today. I'm honestly not sure exactly how, but my hard drive locked itself. I was trying to install FL Studio 11, when it kept saying I didn't have write permissions. I thought that the installer might be corrupted, so I downloaded it again. It still had the same issue. I thought maybe it was an issue with Windows 8, so I burned it to a USB and connected my iPhone to iTunes to try and sync some music to it before I restored Windows. Not only did the driver not install, but iTunes closed and said I either don't have read/write permissions or iTunes is on a locked hard drive. Frustrated at this point, I turned my computer off and booted from my Windows 8 install USB.
Windows 8 will not install because it says that my hard drive is locked so I can't install Windows 8 on the hard drive. I tried installing it again and the installer said that the temporary installation files could not be copied to the hard drive. I can't boot into Windows now, it just stays stuck at the flashing symbol (I've left it there for about 5 hours now, still nothing). I have a lot of files that I really need for making my music and a lot of unrecoverable pictures, so I really need to get this computer fixed.
At the moment I'm installing Windows on a USB in hopes I can boot from that and move all my files to a backup PC and then format my hard drive, but I'm not 100% sure that will work. I checked my BIOS and my hard drive is not locked with a password or anything, so this just doesn't make sense to me. It might have something to do with all the partitions I've made in the last few days to install Linux and I decided I didn't need it so I deleted the partitions and extended my main partition again.
Also, I've already tried automatic repair about 6 times nothing has worked, it says it can't fix my PC. I fixed this problem by downloading Hiren's Boot CD, going into Mini XP, moving all my files to another laptop with USB, and formatting my hard drive completely.
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Oct 4, 2013
Whenever I open new programs, my hard drive jumps up to 100% usage. The problem is my read/write speed looks like it's capped around 10 MB/s. The manufacture says I should get an average of 156 MB/s.
I have a 6 month old Dell XPS 8500 (i7, 8GB RAM, 1TB-7200 rpm hard drive). I consistently take care of it (defrag, clean sweep, virus/malware protection). See the dropbox link or PDF attached for examples of my issue.
Dropbox Link: [URL] .....
Dropbox Video: [URL] .....
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Oct 23, 2013
Im a computer repair tech, so I'm always hooking up hard drives from other computers to backup data or run certain off-line tasks
With windows 7, I could access the entire contents of a drive without any issues (via external USB dock)
Including documents and settings<user name> (Windows XP drives) or users<user name> (Vista, 7)
But with Windows 8, when I try to view the contents of the users folder, I always get
"You don't currently have permission to access this folder" - Click continue to get permanent access....etc
I never had to do this with Win7.
Now if I hit continue, I can indeed view those files and do my thing...but here's the issue: If Im trying to get a backup of somebody's dying drive, I can't afford the added stress of Windows making permissions change to an entire user folder...nor do I really want to make changes on the files (which the hard drive will be going back into original computer) by adding my credentials to every file/folder in there.
I just want to be able to get the files without any of the permissions prompts, something Windows 7 never asked for.
Is there some sort of setting I can do, registry or whatever....to eliminate this? I have UAC turned off, made some changes in secpol.msc.... so far no luck
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Oct 17, 2013
I have windows 8 installed on c drive and Linux mint installed on separate hard disk. Everything was working fine before I installed kubuntu from Linux mint. After installation I couldn't get into windows 8 because it was giving error message 0*c000000f. I tried to refresh Windows but no avail because windows has locked that drive and I couldn't access it. Than I decided to backup important files from windows 8 hard disk from Linux. I accessed windows 8 drive but three folders were missing "Windows" , "Users" and "Program Files(64)" other than that I can access all files and problem is all important data is in user folder.
Than I installed windows 8 on different partition still same thing cant access those three folders. Is there any possible way to simply access user folder?
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Feb 18, 2014
I am running 8.1... recently my second seagate barracuda HDD has just been disapearing from explorer... this is my last resort, after this there is nothing... google is completely useless.. I have bought a brand new sata cable, so thats ruled out, the drive is NOT dead, it works perfectly fine and is 100% healthy. the motherboard is not fried, that was just replaced not more than a month ago. the UEFI BIOS is up to date... basically as i said my drive just disapears.. some days ill be able to see it and access files, the next it will not show up in any program at all... I have tried seatools, it does NOT show up in there... im just about ready to throw this damn drive out the window...
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Feb 26, 2013
I have an 8GB flash drive that's write protected. There is no lock/unlock on the flash drive. How can I reformat/erase the contents so I can use the flash drive for other things? I've tried low level and that didn't work.
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Mar 21, 2014
My usb is apparently disk write protected. there is no physical switch on the usb. i can't understand it as it was working perfectly one day & the next it was write protected, it maybe to do with the fact that i formatted with 'wii backup manager' allowing me to put downloaded wii games onto the usb & play it on the wii, but i can't remember if i done this or not.
I googled the question and someone said to run cmd, diskpart, list disk, select disk X, attribute disk clear readonly, clean. it goes on for a few more steps but at this point i get the error message "DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O Device error. See the system event log for more information"
What can i do. the usb is only around a year old so shouldnt be damaged already.
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Dec 30, 2013
When I try to format my flash drive it shows that the drive is Write-Protected. When I tried to remove it through diskpart it said it completed successfully, but when I try to format it again it still didn't work. I also tried removing it using REGEDIT with storage device policies, but that STILL didn't work.
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Aug 14, 2014
I've a relatively new SanDisk Cruzer Slice 64GB USB pen drive, which I use for work mainly. It has somehow managed to write protect itself and no matter what I do I simply cannot remove it!
I've scanned with Antivirus, nothing found
I've tried regedit - ComputerHKEY_LOCAL_MACHINESYSTEM CurrentControlSetControlStorageDevicePolicies
StorageDevicePolices didn't exist so I created a 32 bit Dword string, set to 0 this hasn't done anything
I've tried Diskpart as administrator - DISKPART> list disk
Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 298 GB 1024 KB
Disk 1 Online 59 GB 0 B
DISKPART> select disk 1
Disk 1 is now the selected disk.
DISKPART> attributes disk clear readonly
Disk attributes cleared successfully.
DISKPART> clean
DiskPart has encountered an error: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error. See the System Event Log for more information. I've checked the logs and it doesn't seem to list anything for the drive
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Apr 16, 2013
Yesterday I was working on some stuff on my computer and left it when my door rang. When I came back the computer was on but no matter how many times I tried to move the mouse or press keyboard shortcuts Windows wouldn't come back on. So I manually powered down, and then it got worse. It wouldn't repair manually or from the Windows disk. I tried all kinds of stuff. I tried a refresh install but I got this
"The drive where Windows is installed is locked" Then this morning when I went back to back to turn it on and trouble shot. All I got was a black screen. No NVIDIA window or anything.
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Mar 24, 2013
Trying to unlock a flash drive which is in write protected mode in Windows 8. There is no protect switch on the side of the drive.
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Aug 1, 2014
I have an Asus T300LA Transformer with Windows 8.1. My keyboard stopped working so wanted to use the recovery utility, but when I get there it says my hard drive is locked and to unlock it. How do I do that?
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Jul 13, 2014
I have a 1.5 yr. old ASUS notebook which has been upgraded from the initial Windows 8.0 to 8.1 and then to PRO several months ago. The PRO was done in an attempt to install the encryption technology, Bitlocker. Shortly after the install of Bitlocker, I found it would not work and traced it back to a discussion with ASUS who said this particular notebook was not built with the ability to be encrypted. (This is the second notebook/laptop in several months that I ran across this!) In any case, Bitlocker is not turned on anywhere, and unfortunately, I can't find any tool to remove it from my harddrive as of yet. I only mention this as a possible bearing on the issue since apparently it embeds itself in the root directory, if I am correct. This problem recently started for some unknown reason I can't contribute anything to.
My drive D: is an extension on the physical drive. When I try to manipulate and files or folders, it comes up with "the media is read only" or "the disk is write protected" all dependent on what I am trying to do and what application is open. It will, of course, allow me to copy files to C:. I have tried the following:
-CHKDSK which found nothing
-FILE CHECKER which found nothing
-PERMISSIONS checked and everyone and everything has full permissions
-DISKPART/ATTRIBUTES ran to check everything and according to the attributes on this volume, there is NO READONLY! I ran the CLEAN command 2X anyway which came up "successful" each time.
-I also ran some quality DISK MANAGEMENT software which could not make any modifications since it views the drive as "Read Only".
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Sep 14, 2012
I keep getting this when trying refresh my Windows 8 rp
The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again.
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Jul 4, 2014
I am setting up a new computer with Windows 8.1. I have added a 6TB second drive to the system that I am putting my Files on. I want only the Admin username to have access to this drive and block other users (other users are my kids).
Is blocking other users as simple as going to the security tab and remove "Users(XXUsers)" and just leave Authenticated Users, System, and Administrators? Should I add in this admin username too?
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Feb 3, 2014
I can't create a simple text file and place it on my C: drive in Win 8.1 - says that I don't have permission. The properties of the drive show that I do - full control, every class of user. Am I missing something really simple?
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Oct 26, 2013
I have windows 8.1 and am trying to do a refresh as I've had some problems. But I keep getting a message that says, "The drive where windows are installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again." I then did a scan using "SFC/SCANNOW" When it was finished it said that it found some corrupt files but could not fix some of them. So the question is: What is a locked drive and how do you unlock it?
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Sep 15, 2014
I was trying to share my c drive to my network and took it too far. I ended up changing permissions and now I cant access the c drive or any program, I am locked out. What now ???
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Jun 21, 2014
Have decided to take the plunge to reset my computer (because Windows Store would not open). Booted from the installation disk but cannot Reset or Refresh, I get "The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."
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Mar 5, 2013
I'm booting off my SSD which is drive C: and I have games and programs on an extra hard drive which was origanally drive H: but after a restart it switched to I: and when I go into Disk Management to change it Drive H: isn't there.
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Dec 26, 2012
I have a 2TB Western Digital My Book Essentials, it's filled with tons of old photos, movies, docs, games, and I'm scared to think of what else. The SATA to USB connector broke on it, so I took the drive apart and put it inside my computer. I opened up device manager because it wasn't showing up automatically and the 2TB is showing up as unallocated, I'm freaking out now because I'm scared the data was somehow deleted.What do I do?
edit: I realize also this isn't directly related to Windows 8 (besides the fact it's the OS I'm on), but I don't know where else to post it. I'd also like to say that I had a really deep feeling the drive was going to break continually for about two weeks before it happened, so if you have a similar feeling about something, don't ignore it!
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Jun 22, 2014
Can you save to hard drive and One Drive at Same Time?
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Jul 10, 2013
I know there is good software out there to clone/image my hard drive and restore it to a new SSD drive. I'm just wondering though, since my laptop is brand new, I made a full recovery to a USB drive and included the OEM recovery partition.
Couldn't I just swap out the old HDD with the new SSD and boot with the recovery stick and do a full recovery back to the new SSD?
Also, however I do this, recover or image backup/restore, do I need to do some type of SSD alignment? I can't find a clear answer on that.
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Jan 22, 2013
I formatted a HD that had the bootmanager on it. The Win 8 disc can't repair it. I'm also getting a message that my C: drive is locked.
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Sep 15, 2014
i have Ultrabook Dell XPS 15 (Touch screen)
with 2 hard drivers (500GB SATA+ 32GB SSD )
now the question, when i re install windows 8.1
how i can partition the 32 SSD hard drive
should i install windows on it ? or just use it a a normal partition ?
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Jun 27, 2014
when plugging in my seagate freeagent hard drive i get the message "USB device not recognized. I have been to device manager and it appears as "unknown USB device (device descriptor request failed)". I have tried uninstalling it and reinstalling, checked for new drivers/updates.
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Nov 18, 2013
When my computer is idling the hard drive is working like mad. What is it doing? Can it be file indexing? And if yes, how do I turn it off?
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Dec 29, 2013
I am new to Windows 8, and first time with a laptop. I have 1tb hard drive (minus a few gb) in c drive. d drive is being used as recovery
This is how it was setup. What I would like to do is to partition the amount of space i have from c drive into another drive.
Can manage to partition some hard drive space over to another driver letter, if i do a fresh install of windows, will this new drive be formatted too?
(Just asking this because when I owned a desktop computer, I had two drives. A c-drive and a d-drive. When I re-installed windows 7 on the desktop, all my files were still available on the d-drive, hence asking the above last question).
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Sep 15, 2014
I have a windows 8 laptop and wanted to re install a whole new windows 8 on it. I'm going to use the generic product key than once installed use the one that i found with magic belly bean key finder. I am just worried that it might say something went wrong than have to buy windows 8 so could i partition the hard drive and than once i know the new windows 8 is good than delete the other?
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May 16, 2013
A few months ago my laptop broke and it needed repairs. The HDD was replaced and i got my laptop back with one new HDD inside and one "broke" HDD in a bag. Later the "Repaired" Laptop crashed again so i bought a new one and took the HDD out of the old laptop. I bought a HDD case with USB connection and both of the HDD's where intact. The oldest HDD contained windows 7 and the replaced contained windows 8. Now i want to sell the Windows 8 HDD so i want it to be clean of personal files but i want it to keep windows 8. I thought the solution was to run the windows 8 on the HDD so i can use the program deletation program of that windows 8. The problem is i dont know how to run windows 8 of a hard drive. I have searched the internet but with no success.
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Nov 4, 2013
I have two USB 3.0 ports on the front of my Dell XPS 8500 Dell desktop. Once again I have caused the USB 3.0 eXtensible Host Controller to stop working because I did not disconnect the external hard drive before shutting down, it seems. It reminds me of leaving in a floppy drive but at least the computer would not boot in that circumstance. Now, there is no warning whatsoever. Dell technical support's answer is to refresh or reset the machine.
Any way that would be less time-consuming than having to reinstall all of my applications.
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