Windows 8 "The drive where Windows is installed is locked.Unlock the drive and try again."

I've tried SFC/SCANNOW in MS-DOS but got the following message:

"Windows Resource Protection could not start the repair service".

I'm in trouble.

If I click on "Re-image your computer" -- "Advanced" -- "Add Drivers" -- "OK", I can see my computer files.
But of course, I don't have an image of my computer.

If I try to use System Restore, I get the following message:

"To use System Restore, you must specify which Windows installation to restore.
Restart this computer, select an operating system, and then select System Restore"

I'm just dreaming about arguing whether it's good or bad not to have the Start Button.

I have found that A LOT of Windows 8 users are having the same problem "with locked drive".
There is a web-site, "How to fix:
"The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."
Fix - The drive where Windows is installed is locked

My problem is that when I get into MS-DOS mode, it says, X:\>Sources.
How to switch to C: drive. I forgot DOS commands.

If I try to run CHKDSK, I get the following message:

"Errors detected in the uppercase file.

Windows has checked the file system and found problems.

...

Failed to transfer logged messages to the event log with status 50.



If I run CHKDSK/F, I get the following:

"Cannot lock current drive, Windows cannot run disk checking on this volume because it is write protected."



Why did I upgrade the most stable Windows 7 to Windows 8?

Did you ugprade or do a full install? Upgrades frequently have problems.
Joe

Some of the command lines I'm seeing are missing spaces in them...

sfc /scannow

CHKDSK /f/r

You might, also, try:

Command Prompt, Run as Admin

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /ScanHealth

Hit ENTER

After that finishes...

DISM.exe /Online /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth

Hit ENTER

Reboot

Cheers,
Drew
Link Removed

Hello zmechys;

Please try this;
Open CMD w/Admin privileges, then copy/paste what I have here in bold; chkdsk C: /f /r /x
and it should work.
I'm sort of coming in here blind as I was trying to read up on your other thread and this one at the same time.

How did you install/upgrade Windows 8 in the first place, DVD, download or a thumb drive?
What type of drive are/did you install to, IDE, SATA or SSD

"To use System Restore, you must specify which Windows installation to restore.
Restart this computer, select an operating system, and then select System Restore"

Click to expand...

This would indicate that something did go wrong with the update to Windows 8 as it's referring to another OS which should not be there.
You may also want to have a look here; http://windows8forums.com/windows-8...oved-chkdsk-utility-windows-8-w-tutorial.html

If nothing here has helped, then you may need to do a "Clean Install" instead of the upgrade option and by using the "Clean Install" method you can completely wipe the drive and start anew.

Keep us in the loop

Don

I would say you are at a stage, unfortunately, of needing to reinstall. Repair options are not going to work.
Start over and do a Custom (Clean) install with a format as part of the install. On the screen after you choose Custom Install, you will see a link to Advanced (Disk) Options. Click on this. On the next screen, highlight your Win 8 installation and choose Format. After the Format completes the installation will continue.
If you have any data, which you really need to save first, download and run a "Live" cd. I would recommend "knoppix" as being extremely user friendly, with a very simple access to your ruined Windows 8 folders.

Thank you for your help.
Three months ago, I purchased a new Windows 7 computer for my work.
During those months, I had ZERO problems, no issues. My computer with Intel core i7-3770 and 8GB of RAM was fast and very stable.
I was getting emails from Microsoft "What are you waiting for? Upgrade to Windows 8 for $14.99"
Two weeks ago, I decided to go for Windows 8.
First time, it was an upgrade. Later, I did refresh twice my OS. After the last refresh, my computer crashed. Nothing worked. After a phone call to Microsoft, I was able to download Win8, transfer it to a USB Flash Drive and do the "clean install" of the system.

Five days later after my "clean install" of Windows 8, I have the same problem with my computer - NOTHING WORKS.
I'm going to try Knoppix and save my files and updated databases.
Thank you for your advice.

Adamsappleone said:

Hello zmechys;

Please try this;
Open CMD w/Admin privileges, then copy/paste what I have here in bold; chkdsk C: /f /r /x
and it should work.
Don

Click to expand...

The closest I can get to Windows 8 is the Lock Screen. As soon as I enter my password, the computer goes into the "Blue-screen-and-nothing-else" mode.
How can I launch Command Prompt Elevated from the Lock Screen?

Insert the Flash Drive and choose Repair My PC. One of the options is the Command Prompt

An update about my frozen computer.
Last night, I entered my password and left my computer running overnight. This morning, I was able to log-in and get to my Desktop Screen.
As soon as I tried to open my MS Access database, my computer froze.
I can use "Windows Key + X" but cannot open anything - Task Manager, Command Prompt, File Explorer.
I've just clicked on "Windows Key" and got to METRO Interface. Right now, my computer really froze. No reaction to the keyboard anymore. My mouse is movable.
What should I do?
Please help.

Medicted60 said:

Insert the Flash Drive and choose Repair My PC. One of the options is the Command Prompt

Click to expand...

How to get the Command Prompt elevated (Administrator) when I boot my computer with a USB Flash Drive?

Your first post would seem to suggest there was something bad happened when you tried to open the .pdf file.

Later you mention that the system locked up when you accessed your data base.

Any chance a virus is involved, and what anti-virus are you running. I haven't heard of a .pdf file containing a virus, but I do not know for sure. If it wasn't a virus, perhaps it caused a problem in Windows 8.

When you ran the System File Check, did you run it from offline as in the link?

How to Run the System File Checker (Sfc.exe) Offline in Windows 7 and Vista - The Winhelponline Blog

You are correct about folks with "Locked" drives (or partitions). But as far as I am aware, no one has determined what is locking the drive. And I have not had the experience, so I could only guess at the cause. But I am currently going through the suggestions in the link below to see what might be happening.

How to mount an NTFS partition read-only in Windows? - Super User

I suppose you could check the following to see if it is involved. It should be fairly easy. If some type of data corruption from Office is causing the problem, if you can get back in, you may have to repair that. You could also try booting into safe mode.

Boot to the Flash Drive, or another Windows 8 option to get you into the TroubleShoot - Advanced Options - Command Prompt (or something similar).

If you boot the flash drive, select Repair on the Second Screen.

You can use Diskpart to check or change an attribute setting on a drive or partition. In your case, if this is the situation, we do not yet know if the entire drive is locked or just one partition.

When you get to the command prompt, type Diskpart to open the utility.

Then type the following commands and enter after each. I will include an actual listing at the end. Check the list for which disk you want to inspect.

lis dis
sel dis 0
attri disk

Check what the Read-only state shos on the drive. If it is not set as Read-only, next we would check the volumes for the System and OS partitions. Substitute volume for disk.

Type exit to leave Diskpart.

C:\Windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 6.1.7601
Copyright (C) 1999-2008 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: Mine

DISKPART> lis dis

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 223 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 1 Online 119 GB 1024 KB *
Disk 2 Online 1863 GB 1024 KB *

DISKPART> sel dis 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> attri disk
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : Yes
Pagefile Disk : Yes
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : Yes
Clustered Disk : No

DISKPART> lis vol

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 0 I DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 C Windows 7 NTFS Partition 223 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 2 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System
Volume 3 F Windows 8 NTFS Partition 118 GB Healthy
Volume 4 Recovery NTFS Partition 300 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 5 FAT32 Partition 99 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 6 D Data NTFS Partition 488 GB Healthy
Volume 7 E Video NTFS Partition 1374 GB Healthy

DISKPART> sel vol F

Volume 3 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> attrib vol
Read-only : No
Hidden : No
No Default Drive Letter: No
Shadow Copy : No

DISKPART>

Click to expand...

Your all doing it wrong it is such a simple fix do as i say below thanks.


Boot your PC with your current install disk. Now when it boots up select country and then click repair computer

Then navigate to the command prompt and type as you see below


Microsoft DiskPart version 6.2.9200

Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: HOME

DISKPART> list disk

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 149 GB 1024 KB

DISKPART> select disk 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> active

DiskPart marked the current partition as active.

DISKPART>

I am having similar issues to OP. I have a Toshiba Qosmio x875 with Windows 8.1 (computer came with Windows 7, I upgraded immediately to Windows 8, and updated to Windows 8.1 in October when it was released).

Tonight, I was watching a DVD using Windows Media Center. When it ended, I clicked the stop button and ejected the disc. Then, Then Windows Media Center screen froze for 5-10 minutes. Eventually, I received an error message from a screen I had never seen before (I figured that the update to Windows 8.1 changed the way errors looked and since I don't remember anything like this since updating to Windows 8.1, I didn't think much about it.). I don't remember the error message, but I think it said that there was a problem and that it was reporting the error and that if I wanted to look it up...I didn't write down the information. Upon reboot, I got a black screen that said "No bootable device"...After waiting for 30 minutes, I finally pressed the power button and turned off the computer. When I turned it back on, I received the same message.

I pressed the power button again, unplugged the laptop, removed the battery, and pressed the power button for 30 seconds. Then I replaced the battery and power cord and turned it back on. Now, I decided to put in my recovery discs. I think I was offered 2 options: 1. a Toshiba recovery (which when selected said it would take me back to factory settings and wipe out all of my data) and 2. I think this was a generic recovery option. This time I selected the second option and tried to refresh my pc, which gave me the error that brought me here: The drive where Windows is installed is locked.

I was able to access the BIOS (or is it UEFI now?) and both internal drives show up there. I called Toshiba and they just want to wipe out everything and reinstall Windows (and charge me $160), which I have the knowledge and ability to do myself. The problem is that I recently suspected a problem with my external drive, so I transferred the files to my desktop until I could buy another external drive.

So, that brings me back to this thread. So far, I have done the following:

diskpart
list disk (shows disk 0 online, size 931GB, free 931GB and disk 1 online size 931GB, free 0B...this worries me because I assume that 0 is my OS, so it shouldn't be empty and disk 1 shouldn't be quite that full)
select disk 0
select partition 1

Then, I get the error:

Virtual Disk Service error:
The disk is not initialized.

I hope that I have given you enough information. If not, I apologize...just let me know what else you need.

I'm not sure what caused this. I have been using 8.1 since October without any problems and have seen no indication that my hard drive is failing up until today. I suspect (hope) that the hard drive is fine, since it is still recognized. I would be happy to do a clean install of the OS once I recover my important (irreplaceable) files.

Hi,
check your machines support page for updates. I'd check everything, Bios, firmware updates and drivers:
http://support.toshiba.com/support/modelHome?freeText=3478714

Running the system file checker may also help. Right click in the left hand corner of the desktop and click admin cmd prompt, type:
sfc /scannow
Press enter and await results.

Eeyore71 said:

Eventually, I received an error message from a screen I had never seen before (I figured that the update to Windows 8.1 changed the way errors looked and since I don't remember anything like this since updating to Windows 8.1, I didn't think much about it.). I don't remember the error message, but I think it said that there was a problem and that it was reporting the error and that if I wanted to look it up...I didn't write down the information.

Click to expand...

This sort of sounds like some type of virus might be involved. A couple of years ago I had one that changed the name of one of the boot files and stopped the system from booting. That was before Windows 8 but if you gave something permission, it might have been able to change something.

Eeyore71 said:

I was able to access the BIOS (or is it UEFI now?) and both internal drives show up there.

Click to expand...

Did you check and make sure a Windows Boot Manger entry was the primary boot device in the bios? If it is trying to boot directly to the hard drive, it will not fine an OS.

Eeyore71 said:

diskpart
list disk (shows disk 0 online, size 931GB, free 931GB and disk 1 online size 931GB, free 0B...this worries me because I assume that 0 is my OS, so it shouldn't be empty and disk 1 shouldn't be quite that full)

Click to expand...

Not really a good assumption since the Drive number is basically set by the connection to the Motherboard. The Drive priority is set in the bios, and the OS could be on either one, but probably not the empty one, if it is empty. If as drive shows as uninitialized, something has been removed from the drive's configuration data and Windows cannot read it. It may not be empty, so be careful. As an example, a drive cleaned with diskpart will show as uninitialized and the following is what Diskpart will do to a GPT configured drive.

On GUID partition table (GPT) disks, the GPT partitioning information, including the Protective MBR, is overwritten

Click to expand...

I will have to do some research to see if there might be a way to recovery data from an uninitialized drive. There may be some third party utilities which would recreate the drives configuration, but I am not aware of one right now.

As far as the original thread and the locked drive message, I have not seen that and do not know of specifics circumstances involved in such an event.