Windows 10: "Drive where windows is installed is locked"

so i ran into an issue where some of the default apps with windows stopped working. i'd had a strange crash/BSOD and i tried a lot of things to fix it - details are here: BSOD reboot loop while playing BF1 System Service Exception

i think the apps not working may have come from one of the fixes i tried to do with the restore points and other things with the windows installation usb i have. i hadnt noticed it till now because i've been using a different computer primarily for about the last two weeks. i came back and noticed my movies would not play through the default movie player, but all worked fine in VLC. i remembered something in a tutorial i'd found that had me turn off most of the system services, so i looked in msconfig and noticed the startup selection was checked to "selective startup" instead of "normal startup." so i changed it back to normal startup and rebooted and now the computer won't boot. it just gets to a solid color screen with the spinning loading circles and sits there. i can get into safe mode, and i tried changing it back but it didnt work.

i booted from the windows installation USB this morning and was going to reset the computer and just save my files, but when i selected that, it told me "The drive where windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."

not sure what this is talking about or how to fix it. any help is greatly appreciated!

:)

 

Lumia " The Future is Here "

This is a support forum, not a complaints department.

I suggest you directly submit your complaints about hardware to Nokia and software to Microsoft.



Also it often helps to read reviews when switching platforms to make sure it suits your needs. From what you've said the Lumia 820 clearly doesn't suit you.

 

Lumia " The Future is Here "

psychomania: This is a support forum, not a complaints department.



psychomania: Also it often helps to read reviews when switching platforms to make sure it suits your needs. From what you've said the Lumia 820 clearly doesn't suit you.



What RSXforever wrote was a kind of review, that can help other people to judge, if Lumia is the right phone for them.

 

anyone have any ideas?

 

First job boot install dvd goto cmd prompt type

chkdsk c: /f
when done try
sfc /scannow

 

ok i was able to boot from the usb device and get to the command prompt. i have run both chkdsk c: /f and chkdsk c: /r (i found a bit about the /r doing some digging on the internet).

the sfc /scannow would not run from the command prompt through the usb, it always said "there is a system repair pending which requires reboot to complete. restart windows and run sfc again." this is probably from when just before i posted this thread i found a way into safe mode and attempted a system restore. the computer had to reboot for the system restore and when it did it just went back to the solid color screen and spinning circles.

after a few restarts, a blue error screen showed up and i was able to boot into safemode with command prompt (not through the bootable windows installation usb). through that command prompt, i was not able to run chkdsk at all, but i was able to run sfc /scannow.

after running all those, if i try to boot like normal, it still gets to the colored screen with the spinning circles and sits there forever. i havent tried "reset my pc" again yet. i did try the startup repair through the installation usb, and that failed again. i also tried the system restore through the installation usb again, and it still did not work.

images attached

 

Something here might help:
Fix - The drive where Windows is installed is locked
BTW the SFC command might need to be run as many as three times with reboots in between.

 

well, i was trying nearly anything i could, and i've messed something up real bad. the system image restore failed. i went to try and reset the pc using the option that doesnt save my files and that gave me some error about a partition. now the computer just boots to a black screen and says "missing operating system."

so i decided to just bite the bullet and install windows fresh from this usb i used from my 2nd computer, and i saw something interesting when selecting a drive. the disk i had as my initial c: has 3 different partitions and each of them give the error in this picture. "windows cannot be installed to this disk. the selected disk has an MBR partition table. on EFI systems, windows can only be installed to GPT disks."

is there any way i can fix this in DISKPART in command prompt before i just wipe this drive clean and start over?

 

If you clear that error you should see a delete option. (below the partition section to the right). Select a partition and then click. When they are all gone select the first for windows install and it will tell you it will make additional.

It might not delete with "lock" condition.

 

That second partition is the OEM Recovery Partition. If you delete that you won't be able to do a "factory reset" but you probably don't care at this point. Clearly a clean install is the best option to give you best performance going forward.

when the install is finished remember to give the SSD some unallocated space at the end to use for TRIM.

 

and here is a nice walk through using diskpart should the delete option not work.

How to Remove an EFI System Partition or GPT Protective Partition From a Drive in Windows

Sure we have a tutorial but I'm closing down.