"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
    2015-08-08T00:17:09+00:00

    Juan123. Thank you so much.  I have not been able to get rid of this error and load windows 7.  Once I unhooked, reloaded, re hooked , I was able to do a repair and restore of my windows environment.   

    I was was down for a week!!!!!!

    again thanks!!

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  2. Anonymous
    2015-08-21T16:55:06+00:00

    Wow, I mistakenly activated my hard drive for a new installation of an operating system. My computer stayed locked; could not figure out how to reactivate my hard drive. Stumbled upon this sight and Here I am. Thanks so very much!!! Off to the races now.

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  3. Anonymous
    2015-09-01T21:04:56+00:00

    So, near 1 month ago, I ended up returning the disk from the OP to SanDIsk and under warranty I got a 512 GB X210 for the 2 locked SSDs.

    Until that time, I ran Win 8.1 Enterprise on a SAMSUNG 840 EVO with no issues. Within weeks,  I bought a retail license of Windows 10 Pro, it makes sense if your hardware changes, e.g.

    -same motherboard,

    -new SSDs

    -changed my AMD FX 8320 95W processor with a deal on an unlocked higher 4.2 GHz CPU (4350) Black edition, which is 1 chipset more advanced than the 8-core 8320 with lower GHz.

    Lots of blue screens of death - 3+ times? Somewhere between multiple clean reinstalls, my boot, C:\ drive, SSD 240 GB  "..[was] locked."

    The system restore media on a 8GB USB 3.0 drive couldn't do the restore. Sad.

    None of the "create a restore point"s were available.

    Maybe there was an attribute SET on the disk, LIKE READONLY, that I could clear so that the OS had an unlocked C:\ drive it could boot from. Maybe I made a mistake somewhere - it was late - so I just entered DISK CLEAN into DISKPART, followed by create partition primary,  

    If possible, I should have tried cloning/mirroring my dysfunctional C:\ drive to a safer drive.

    DISKPART is now like my favorite CMD tool

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