Windows 8 is stuck in an automatic repair loop

Well I know for sure whats happened to everyones computers, one word though DO NOT WIPE YOUR HARD DISKS THINKING YOU'VE LOST YOUR FILES!!!!!!!!!!!

What happened for some reason to me anyway! Is I installed Windows 8 onto 1 of my hard drives, it worked fine for a couple of days THEN did what has been happening to everyone else! Endless cycle of automatic repair! Nothing happened, it couldn't 'fix' the 'problem' the reason for that is because Windows 8 had locked the hard drive down to such an extent the automatic repair option itself COULDN'T fix the problems, and never would have been able to because it also couldn't see the very drive it was attempting to fix!! So it would have always been stuck in the endless loop with no solution!

Well the problem was this! Windows 8 (as mentioned) for whatever reason had LOCKED the drive aka taken control of the drive it was installed on, when I say taken control I mean made the drive essentially invisible to anything! Such as if you try to go into a folder that you don't have access to it says access denied! (That was in windows 7 might I add!!!! MORE ON THAT IN A SECOND!)

Anyway I booted into Windows 7 and all it said was my D:\ drive was NTFS, right clicking it and selecting properties said it was 0 BYTES, well it can't have been as it's a 1TB hard drive.... And I thought oh f*ck I've lost all my backed up documents etc! Anyway I right clicked the drive again selected PROPERTIES then the SECURITY tab, my Windows 7 username WASN'T listed in there to have access to the drive (remember I said Windows 8 had LOCKED it...) anyway on the SECURITY tab I clicked where it says TO CHANGE PERMISSIONS CLICK EDIT, so I clicked edit which then showed me the GROUPS OR USERNAMES section!

So I clicked ADD then typed my username and clicked check names, it then showed my username UNDERLINED so I clicked OK and selected the option FULL CONTROL in the PERMISSIONS FOR AUTHENTICATED USERS section (which is directly below the GROUPS OR USERNAMES section!) It then did a lot of applying security info or some such! And I could then see ALL the files in Windows Explorer on Windows 7.

Anyway I then couldn't access a LOT of the folders soooo I then went back into the SECURITY TAB (as I mentioned earlier) and clicked ADVANCED which has the sections,

PERMISSIONS

AUDITING

OWNER

EFFECTIVE PERMISSIONS

I then did the same as earlier clicked ADD then typed my username and clicked check names then clicked OK, but on the AUDITING tab I clicked REPLACE ALL EXISTING INHERITABLE AUDITING ENTRIES ON ALL DESCENDANTS WITH INHERITABLE AUDITING ENTRIES FROM THIS OBJECT so I had access to all MY folders!!

It worked! BUT I noticed ALL the folders/files had padlocks on them! Which was annoying! Anyway to get round that you do as before, go back into the SECURITY TAB click ADD then type the username EVERYONE and click check names then click OK, that removes the padlock!

I then reinstalled Windows 8 after manually deleting ALL the program files/program files (x86)/users/windows/ folders etc (perhaps I didn't have to?? as I didn't try to boot back into it after I'd done all that) bear in mind it does indeed take a knowledgeable person to do what I've just explained BUT it can be done and you HAVE NOT lost all your files!! You just can't see them because Windows 8 locked the entire drive!!!!!!

Good luck!

P.S) Bear in mind this worked for me as I had Windows 7 installed separately on another physical hard drive, because I figured Windows 8 would cause some problem or other! So glad I did as well! And i'm certain this will work for everyone who does what I explained to the letter!

HOW MICROSOFT DIDN'T KNOW THIS OR ANY OF THERE SUPPORT TEAM IS BAFFLING!!

This seems to be the most useful post so far. But for someone who has just windows 8 installed, how exactly can this be applied?

This seems to be the most useful post so far. But for someone who has just windows 8 installed, how exactly can this be applied?

Put simply it can't UNLESS you have Windows 7 installed on another SEPARATE hard drive, if you don't then you can still do what I posted BUT you must disconnect the inaccessible drive first!

Once you've done that connect an empty hard disk drive to your computer and install Windows 7 on that, once you've done that and Windows 7 is up and running power off your computer and reconnect the inaccessible drive and make sure your booting from the Windows 7 hard disk drive! You may have to select boot options when you start your computer and choose that hard disk (typically by pressing F12, on my Gigabyte motherboard that's what you press anyway) then do everything I said to do TO THE LETTER!

This is only for people who have the aforementioned problem though NOT you as you don't YET..

Cheers.