WINDOWS 8 /8.1 Won't Boot/'Drive Locked' ? - Before doing anything drastic ...

[zirc99]

WINDOWS 8.0/8.1 Won't Boot/'Drive Locked' ? - Before doing anything drastic (like format and re-install...


Beg or borrow a WINDOWS 7 INSTALLATION DISK to recover Boot Entry/ies

Loads quicker than WIN 8 DVD and repairs (quick) whereas WIN 8 [PRO/RP/CP & 8.1 PRE]
never have in 18 months of tryouts (have multiboot installations)
Try it out, won't make things worse - Windows 7 Installation DVD


More:

"The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."

Background:
First encountered on Restore of backup image (ATI-WD) on RAID 0 Two drive [SSD] array
Fixed: Using WINDOWS 7 Installation Disc - Repair Option

Comment:
During many WIN 8/WIN 7 installations on 4 different drives (on my own computer) MULTIBOOT (up to 7 O/S's) with BACKUP/RESTORE operations - WINDOWS 8 Installation Disk Repair has NEVER solved a startup problem
MICROSOFT should be ashamed that a feature that WORKED with WIN 7 was not brought forward to WIN 8 Installation Disk. Those that don't have one, borrow one (Using repair should not infringe any rules)
My Hobby is installing O/S's:
One drive has WIN 8.1 PRO Preview, WIN 8 PRO, WIN 8 Release Preview-64, WIN 8 Release Preview-32, WIN 8 Consumer Preview-64, WIN 7 - 32, WIN XP - 32 [EasyBCD ver 2.2 essential]
You need to be an enthusiast to install XP with SATA AHCI (Slipstream SP3, load AHCI driver on install)

Happy computing, WIN 8 Great, WIN 8.1 definitely worth having

[HiVizMan]

LOL nice read - like you I am enjoying Win8.1


Take care.

[JohnyCashZX]

If you are using PCIE SSD this is the data recovery solution, because no other solution works. Tried so many, too many actually. :mad:



1.) Insert a spare drive in your PC.

2.) Run the clean installation of win 8 on that drive.

3.) When logging into Win for the first time, install the PCIE SSD drivers.

4.) Run "chkdsk F: /f". F: denotes your PCIE SSD drive after its driver installation. It could be another drive letter.

5.) Now if you use Command Prompt you can see the files on the PCIE SSD. If you use Eplorer it will not be possible.

6.) Find a good recovery program to recover the data on the external drive. Or if you know DOS commands use those.

7.) Clean install win 8 on PCIE SSD and format the old spare drive.



Microsoft really did a "great" job. :mad:Yesterday my PC was working just fine. Today I turned it on I saw only the black screen with white cursor in the top left corner after the BIOS screen. F8 command did not work. Win 8 installation cd neither. It has lousy support for PCIE SSDs. Luckily I could get my data back, otherwise ...



What is worse they are trying to disguise it as virus when it was the Win Update which shabanged everything.

[Doarea]

when i started my Satellite computer on Windows 8(newly updated), it failed and won't boot with message "Operating System not Found". I searched many ways online, tried various methods. Finally, it was Windows Boot Genius fixed the problem. Lucky that all my data are still here!

[Hiende]

Doarea wrote:
when i started my Satellite computer on Windows 8(newly updated), it failed and won't boot with message "Operating System not Found". I searched many ways online, tried various methods. Finally, it was Windows Boot Genius fixed the problem. Lucky that all my data are still here!

Thanks! The Windows Boot Genius worked well!

[chrisnyc75]

I had this happen to me, too. I had to get REAL creative and used the Windows 7 dvd AND Windows Vista dvd. I forget the exact sequence of events, but it took both dvds to open a cmd prompt, and some creative dos commands to convince it that my system drive did indeed have a boot sector.

Windows 8.1 - a new adventure every day. 😉

p.s. it is *absolutely* windows update that causes this particular problem, don't let anybody tell you otherwise.