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

Anonymous
2013-01-22T22:31:56+00:00

What to do when you get the following message on "the most stable", Windows 8, operating system?

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

I got that message after the following:

I wanted to open a PDF file from my customer on OUTLOOK - a regular, every-hour procedure - and my computer froze. Nothing worked; therefore, only manually disconnecting my computer from the power source, I was able to shut it down.

After I restarted, I could not get passed the login screen - my computer used to enter the "blue background color and nothing else" mode. 

I decided to use USB Flash drive to repair Win8 but it failed. I wanted to refresh my Windows 8, but I got that message:

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

Just 4 days ago, I did a "clean install" of Windows 8 OS.

What should I do besides another "clean install" of Windows 8?

Windows for home | Previous Windows versions | Performance and system failures

Locked Question. This question was migrated from the Microsoft Support Community. You can vote on whether it's helpful, but you can't add comments or replies or follow the question.

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Anonymous
2014-09-06T13:07:42+00:00

2 SSD drives one SATA HDD

win 8.1 on SSD #1

this is what I did:

  1. shutdown
  2. unhooked HDD
  3. restarted
  4. yay !!
  5. reconnected HDD
  6. restarted
  7. yay !!

cheers

Thank you.  Of all the proposed solutions this is the only one I tried and it worked perfectly.  My computer is back up and running.  Thank you so much!

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Anonymous
2013-04-16T06:32:07+00:00

I clean installed windows 8 on a second HD and then the original came up as an option.  the key is to disconnect the first hd with the good install on it. and then go into the bios and adjust your boot sequence.  

At least this worked for me.  As soon as this works you must defeat any options for fast start as that is likely where the trouble is.  This is outrageous as it is happening to customers across the world but yet the company is trying to pass it off as a virus.  I was told I would have to buy a second license to get the install to stabilize.  It is BS.

Good Luck

KC O'Dunn

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  1. Anonymous
    2013-04-16T13:31:37+00:00
    1. You need to download a copy of Windows 8 on a different computer.
    2. Transfer the downloaded copy on your flash-disk.
    3. Turn your "bad" computer off, insert your USB flash disk, and start the "damaged" computer.
    4. Follow the instructions of "clean install" on the screen.

    P.S. You need to have your Window 8 Serial number ready.

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  2. Anonymous
    2013-03-15T17:19:19+00:00

    Yes, it was resolved by re-installing Windows 8.

    Not refreshing, not resetting, but downloading Windows 8 on flash disk and doing a "clean install" of Windows 8. Just one advice.

    Turn off Fast Startup in the future.

    ======================================

    “Fast Startup (aka: hybrid boot or hybrid Shutdown) is a new feature in Windows 8 to help your PC start up faster after shutting down. When turned on, Windows 8 does this by using a hybrid shutdown (a partial hibernate) method that saves only the kernal session and device drivers (system information) to the hibernate (hiberfil.sys) file on disk instead of closing it when you shut down your PC. This also makes the hiberfil.sys file to be much smaller than what hibernate would use (often 4GB or more). When you start your PC again, Windows 8 uses that saved system information to resume your system instead of having to do a cold boot to fully restart it. Using this technique with boot gives a significant advantage for boot times, since reading the hiberfile in and reinitializing drivers is much faster on most systems (30-70% faster on most systems tested). If you have a motherboard with UEFI, then fast startup will be even faster.”

    =====================================

    Because of that feature, anytime I manually used to shut my computer down, Windows 8 was trying to load the “frozen” corrupt system information instead of going the long way and completing its normal full startup sequence.

    I've immediately turned Fast Startup off.

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  3. Anonymous
    2013-03-15T16:13:28+00:00

    It is March 15th, 2013 and I am in the same **** you were in, in January. Interesting to me that this is a major issue and yet I have heard nothing about a fix or a rewrite to whatever flawed area of code that is allowing this to happen. Those of us on deadlines are crushed when things crash but hardware can be backed up, operating systems are supposed to operate. You have not issued another statement since January 22, 2013... was this resolved?

    Thanks in advance

    Plato

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