Trying to access files on hard drive that wont boot up

[Hibernian]

Hi, I've had some big PC problems over the last week. My computer somehow got into a state where it wouldn't boot up, I was talking to the PC Specialist tech support people several times and we worked out what to do... sort of. They recommended reinstalling Windows on the C drive, because the boot files (or some other part of Windows) is corrupted. We tried a bunch of repair options and we think the hard drive is working fine, it's probably just a software problem.

However, I don't want to attempt to reinstall Windows until I can copy the full contents of the drive and be certain that I have everything on it backed up. I know that there's an option to reinstall Windows and "keep files", but I couldn't get a guarantee that I wouldn't lose some data doing that. I am mainly just concerned with backing up my documents, photos and other various files. I really cannot lose them and they are not backed up anywhere else.

At the moment what I've done is take the old SSD drive out of my old PC (about 7 or 8 years old) and connect it into the new PC (purchased from PC Specialist in 2021) and told the system to boot up from that drive. It works and I am able to load up my old system on the new PC. I then just thought I would be able to copy over the content of the unbootable drive to an external hard drive and then I would be able to safely reinstall windows on that drive (and later transfer the data back to it).

However, many parts of the drive seem to be both Write protected and saying I don't have permission to open the files/folders.
This is mainly true of the User folder, I cannot get into it, but that's where most of the vital files I need are stored.
I'm really not sure how to solve this, I looked online and there are a few tutorials saying that you can change permissions easily, but when I try to do that it gives me an "Access denied" message, saying the media/file is write protected. And if I try to remove the read-only mode, it says I don't have permission to do that. So the files seem locked. But these are my own files, on another PC and I am the administrator of both! And both PCs use the same Microsoft Account.

The PC Specialist tech support guy told me to install a program called Macrium Reflect to do the transfering, but I'm not at all sure how to use it.

Any ideas how to get around this and get full access to the files again?

Here's some example images:
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[B4zookaw]

You probably have to take ownership of the files: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/take-ownership-folder-windows-10-using-file-explorer

 

[Scott]

As above, when you try to open the folder it should ask you if you want to allow access. When you click yes, it'll take a while to unlock everything but you should then get access. You need to be patient at this step as if you're not, it'll stop the process if you close anything.

 

[Hibernian]

You probably have to take ownership of the files: https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/take-ownership-folder-windows-10-using-file-explorer

I tried that one already, but I can't get it to work.

This is the result when I try to take ownership of the "Users" folder...


It stops doing the change of ownership and give a message saying
"An error occurred when applying security information to
E\Users\All Users
Failed to Enumerate objects in container. Access is denied."

 

[Scott]

If you click "Continue" does it keep going or does it just stop?

This suggests it's corrupt to be honest. I don't think you would even be able to take ownership doing an install of Windows on the drive.

 

[Hibernian]

If you click "Continue" does it keep going or does it just stop?

This suggests it's corrupt to be honest. I don't think you would even be able to take ownership doing an install of Windows on the drive.

When I press on the User folder, it gives me the message "You don't currently have permission to access this folder. Click continue to permanently gain access to this folder".

When I hit continue (which has one of those administrator icons on it), it loads for a while and then gives another message "You have been denied permission to access this folder. To gain access to this folder you will need to use the security tab."

Going into the security tab has not solved the problem.

 

[B4zookaw]

You might want to edit the screenshot, has your email address in it. (Didn't think people still used hotmail )

Have you tried this approach on a single file, rather than an entire folder? I'm wondering if a subset of files or folders that is corrupt might block the entire ownership command.

 

[Hibernian]

You might want to edit the screenshot, has your email address in it. (Didn't think people still used hotmail )

Ok, probably doesn't matter, but done.

Have you tried this approach on a single file, rather than an entire folder? I'm wondering if a subset of files or folders that is corrupt might block the entire ownership command.

I think the only folder that is locked is the User folder, which for me is called "rossc".

Every single other file and folder on the drive is accessible and seems to be operating normally.

 

[Hibernian]

The "rossc" folder shows up as being 0 bytes, 0 files, 0 folders when I click on it in properties. But the drive has 1,227 GB of data on it, and only 490 GB are on the other parts of the drive (I clicked on properties on the other, accessible folders to get that number), so there is definitely about 737 GB of data in "rossc". I just can't open it.

 

[B4zookaw]

Last thing I can think of, outside of recovery tools that you might need to pay for:

• Right-click the folder and select "Properties".
• Click the "Security" tab.
• Under the Group and user name table, click the "Edit".
• Click "Add".
• Type "Everyone" on the box. And click on Check names and click "OK".
• Select "Full Control" and click "Apply".

 

[SpyderTracks]

The "rossc" folder shows up as being 0 bytes, 0 files, 0 folders when I click on it in properties. But the drive has 1,227 GB of data on it, and only 490 GB are on the other parts of the drive (I clicked on properties on the other, accessible folders to get that number), so there is definitely about 737 GB of data in "rossc". I just can't open it.

That's corrupt unfortunately, 0byte folder

 

[RS2OOO]

I had identical problem just a few days ago after a BSOD on my new PC.

After 2 days of stress I gave up trying to save the data and attempted a Windows reset to keep my files. But it was unable to carry out the reset.

At this stage I would have put drive in old PC to clone it and sort out later, but that was a no go since my old PC doesn't have M.2 support.

So I gave up altogether and just went for a clean install using windows media creation tool on a USB, knowing I'd now lose my files forever.

Following the install and after removing the USB stick my PC wouldn't boot. I have no answer to how this happened but it had installed the boot partition on my USB and the other partitions on my drive.

So yet again I started from scratch and did another clean install from the USB, with the usual warnings about everything on the drive will be deleted.

This time everything worked, and to my astonishment after booting up there was a Windows.Old folder and all my files were in it. I googled like hell to work out how this happened after a fresh clean install but I'm still at a loss, just happy to have my files back.

With this in mind I'd take the risk and try the reset option, and if that doesn't work maybe see if you can clone the drive, or better still buy a cheap new drive to do fresh install on, naming your PC the same name as before and using the same password etc, and then you should be able to fully access your old drive, as I assume the boot drive from your other PC has a different windows licence/username/windows account.

 

[SpyderTracks]

I had identical problem just a few days ago after a BSOD on my new PC.

After 2 days of stress I gave up trying to save the data and attempted a Windows reset to keep my files. But it was unable to carry out the reset.

At this stage I would have put drive in old PC to clone it and sort out later, but that was a no go since my old PC doesn't have M.2 support.

So I gave up altogether and just went for a clean install using windows media creation tool on a USB, knowing I'd now lose my files forever.

Following the install and after removing the USB stick my PC wouldn't boot. I have no answer to how this happened but it had installed the boot partition on my USB and the other partitions on my drive.

So yet again I started from scratch and did another clean install from the USB, with the usual warnings about everything on the drive will be deleted.

This time everything worked, and to my astonishment after booting up there was a Windows.Old folder and all my files were in it. I googled like hell to work out how this happened after a fresh clean install but I'm still at a loss, just happy to have my files back.

With this in mind I'd take the risk and try the reset option, and if that doesn't work maybe see if you can clone the drive, or better still buy a cheap new drive to do fresh install on, naming your PC the same name as before and using the same password etc, and then you should be able to fully access your old drive, as I assume the boot drive from your other PC has a different windows licence/username/windows account.

If there was a windows.old folder, you didn't clean install, you did an upgrade in place and accessed the USB from within windows rather than booting from it.

I wouldn't recommend that as it will have the same issues left from the current install.

 

[B4zookaw]

windows.old will show up if you leave any partition with data on a drive and then try to install Windows. To remove it boot from the USB media creation tool and delete all the partions from the boot disk.

This is what the partitions should look like if you do a clean install properly:

 

[RS2OOO]

I should have mentioned, being keen to try recovering my old data I did not format the old drive during the installation process.

But 100% I selected all options for a totally clean install from the USB, and accepted warnings that data on the drive would be lost etc.

It was a little odd actually because one of the partitions didn't show. So as per @IRLRobinS screenshot above it showed something like:

Disk 0 Partition 0 (a tiny size)
Disk 0 Partition 2 (250 or 500mb, can't remember)
Disk 0 Partition 3 (Big space, unallocated)

(There was no partition 1 showing).

I installed into the unallocated space without formatting the drive.

Then when I booted up the Windows.Old folder was there, and in Disk Management the boot drive is now Disk 2 and shows like this, with both the EFI and Recovery Partitions being double the size they are on my other PC. Pictures on the internet show them as being 100MB and 250MB respectively, no idea if that's relevant:

And here's the Winows.Old folder, but note the dump files as well, they are dated from before the clean install. Btw, the error I was getting after the initial crash and when machine wouldn't boot was something like: Critical_Process_Died.

Unlike you guys I am far from being knowledgable in these matters, just hoping my recent experience may help OP seeing that under similar circumstances I managed to save my old files, even though I'd resigned myself to losing them forever and had given up taking steps to save them.

Whether it really was a clean install or not, or a partially clean install just repairing the bad bits, I don't know. All the available reset options didn't work, and after further messing about I got the black screen with "Install Bootable Media" or similar.
So I had to go through all the exact same steps as you would with a clean install, and after install there was 30 minutes or more of updates, then driver installs etc etc.

Btw, in my case 2 backups was not enough - had a drive failure on old computer then this windows crash on new computer in a space of 24 hours.

 

[B4zookaw]

Yeah a clean install is removing all partitions. Your install left two existing partitions in place, which worked out will for you in the end, but is not considered a clean install, as files (probably a boot record too) from previous install of windows are still available

 

[RS2OOO]

Yeah a clean install is removing all partitions. Your install left two existing partitions in place, which worked out will for you in the end, but is not considered a clean install, as files (probably a boot record too) from previous install of windows are still available

Makes sense.

Whilst what I did may not be ideal, maybe if all else fails for OP he can consider similar steps solely as a means to recovering data, unless the data is so valuable it would be worth paying for professional help.

 

[SpyderTracks]

Makes sense.

Whilst what I did may not be ideal, maybe if all else fails for OP he can consider similar steps solely as a means to recovering data, unless the data is so valuable it would be worth paying for professional help.

That's a good plan in this instance

Then do a clean install once the data is safe

 

[Martinr36]

This demonstrates why its a good idea to use services such as onedrive to back up data on

 

[ubuysa]

This demonstrates why its a good idea to use services such as onedrive to back up data on

https://www.pcspecialist.co.uk/forums/threads/backing-up-a-sample-strategy.84014/