Trying to access files on hard drive that wont boot up

H

Hibernian

Silver Level Poster
Ok, guys I actually solved the problem!
I had googled a bunch of possible solutions (most of which were complex), but one suggestion was to simply start the computer in Safe Mode.

I did that and what do you know? All 700+ GB of files in the user folder were there and accessible! :) No more "access denied".

I have no idea why the system acted like this, I can only assume this is some stupid feature of Windows account control (another reason to hate it). But I have all my data now and I am copying it over to the other storage drive (I'll also copy it to an external drive and then try to work out a more permanent solution to backup issues).
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hibernian said:
Ok, guys I actually solved the problem!
I had googled a bunch of possible solutions (most of which were complex), but one suggestion was to simply start the computer in Safe Mode.

I did that and what do you know? All 700+ GB of files in the user folder were there and accessible! :) No more "access denied".

I have no idea why the system acted like this, I can only assume this is some stupid feature of Windows account control (another reason to hate it). But I have all my data now and I am copying it over to the other storage drive (I'll also copy it to an external drive and then try to work out a more permanent solution to backup issues).
Click to expand...
Bravo! 🙏
 
H

Hibernian

Silver Level Poster
Oh also, during the copying of parts of the C drive there were about 10 or 20 files that would not copy over. Mostly they are just some irrelevant image files part of some old projects of mine. A few were PDFs. The reason the system gave was "cannot find source of file", or something like that. I couldn't transfer one PDF file because it said "out of memory". I've no idea what that could mean, since there's tons of unused RAM memory and tons of data space.

Maybe the disk itself has something wrong with it?

Would it be worth running a disk check on the drive? (it's an M.2 SSD drive)
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hibernian said:
Oh also, during the copying of parts of the C drive there were about 10 or 20 files that would not copy over. Mostly they are just some irrelevant image files part of some old projects of mine. A few were PDFs. The reason the system gave was "cannot find source of file", or something like that. I couldn't transfer one PDF file because it said "out of memory". I've no idea what that could mean, since there's tons of unused RAM memory and tons of data space.

Maybe the disk itself has something wrong with it?

Would it be worth running a disk check on the drive? (it's an M.2 SSD drive)
Click to expand...
Sounds like the disk is on the way out. Normally with an SSD it will flat out fail rather than sector by sector like with an HDD

You can check the SMART parameters of the drive with CrysalDiskInfo (just the standard version)

crystalmark.info

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...
crystalmark.info

It may just be OS corruption if that returns everything is ok. If that's the case, unfortunately the data is lost, but you should be ok with the drive
 
H

Hibernian

Silver Level Poster
SpyderTracks said:
Sounds like the disk is on the way out. Normally with an SSD it will flat out fail rather than sector by sector like with an HDD

You can check the SMART parameters of the drive with CrysalDiskInfo (just the standard version)

crystalmark.info

CrystalDiskInfo

About CrystalDiskInfo A HDD/SSD utility software which supports a part of USB, Intel RAID and NVMe. Aoi Edition Standard Edition Shizuku Edition Kurei Kei Edition Download System Requirements OS Windows XP/Vista/7/8/8.1/10/11Windows Server 2003/2008/2012/2016/2019/2022 Architecture x86/x64/ARM64...
crystalmark.info

It may just be OS corruption if that returns everything is ok. If that's the case, unfortunately the data is lost, but you should be ok with the drive
Click to expand...
Ok, I downloaded and ran that Crystal Disk program, though I'm not sure how to interpret the results.
crystal.png



This is what it says about the M.2 drive (which is called the E drive on this install, though it's the C drive with Windows on it normally).

"Critical warning" doesn't sound good. :oops:


Both other drives say GOOD - 99%
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
Hibernian said:
Ok, I downloaded and ran that Crystal Disk program, though I'm not sure how to interpret the results.
View attachment 35800


This is what it says about the M.2 drive (which is called the E drive on this install, though it's the C drive with Windows on it normally).

"Critical warning" doesn't sound good. :oops:


Both other drives say GOOD - 99%
Click to expand...
It's only flagging as the space is fully used. Once this happens the drive won't be able to operate. You really need a good 10% spare on an SSD at all times
 
SpyderTracks

SpyderTracks

We love you Ukraine
You may get lucky, if you plug it in as a secondary drive, then access it via CMD prompt and use the "force" delete command to clear out some folders or whatever you can

  1. The syntax for deleting a file is: del “filename"
  2. The syntax for force deleting a file is: del /f “filename"
  3. del file1 file2 file3 file4.
 
H

Hibernian

Silver Level Poster
SpyderTracks said:
Don't worry if you're not familiar, just do a full format.
Click to expand...
Ok, what's the best way to format the drive and reinstall windows?
Should I do that from the THIS PC menu? And just right click on the drive and press format? Or is there another particular way recommended?

I have Windows 10 on a USB that I can boot from. I assume I can tell Windows to install onto this drive in the options? (what's called the "E drive" there, though I want it to become the C drive)

Which of the options should I use? "Allocation unit size" has many options, 4096 bytes, 8196 bytes, or it can be set to Default Allocation Size.

fromat.png
 
Martinr36

Martinr36

MOST VALUED CONTRIBUTOR
W10 clean install instructions

Download a new copy of Windows using the Media Creation Tool to an 8GB (min) USB.
Boot that USB and choose a Custom Install.
Delete all UEFI partitions on the system drive (EFI System, Recovery, MSR Reserved, Primary).
Select the unallocated space that results and click the Next button. The installer will create the correct partitions and install Windows.
Run Windows Update repeatedly, even across reboots, until no more updates are found.
You may need/want to download and install the latest graphics driver from the Nvidia/AMD website (they change so regularly the latest version isn't always in the Windows libraries).

This is also worth a watch


W11 clean install instructions

Download a new copy of Windows using the Media Creation Tool (Second option on linked page) to an 8GB (min) USB.
Boot that USB and choose a Custom Install.
Delete all UEFI partitions on the system drive (EFI System, Recovery, MSR Reserved, Primary).
Select the unallocated space that results and click the Next button. The installer will create the correct partitions and install Windows.
Run Windows Update repeatedly, even across reboots, until no more updates are found.
You may need/want to download and install the latest graphics driver from the Nvidia/AMD website (they change so regularly the latest version isn't always in the Windows libraries).

This is also worth a watch
 
H

Hibernian

Silver Level Poster
Martinr36 said:
W10 clean install instructions

Download a new copy of Windows using the Media Creation Tool to an 8GB (min) USB.
Boot that USB and choose a Custom Install.
Delete all UEFI partitions on the system drive (EFI System, Recovery, MSR Reserved, Primary).
Select the unallocated space that results and click the Next button. The installer will create the correct partitions and install Windows.
Run Windows Update repeatedly, even across reboots, until no more updates are found.
You may need/want to download and install the latest graphics driver from the Nvidia/AMD website (they change so regularly the latest version isn't always in the Windows libraries).

This is also worth a watch


W11 clean install instructions

Download a new copy of Windows using the Media Creation Tool (Second option on linked page) to an 8GB (min) USB.
Boot that USB and choose a Custom Install.
Delete all UEFI partitions on the system drive (EFI System, Recovery, MSR Reserved, Primary).
Select the unallocated space that results and click the Next button. The installer will create the correct partitions and install Windows.
Run Windows Update repeatedly, even across reboots, until no more updates are found.
You may need/want to download and install the latest graphics driver from the Nvidia/AMD website (they change so regularly the latest version isn't always in the Windows libraries).

This is also worth a watch
Click to expand...
Thanks. But will that fully format the drive though?
 
RS2OOO

RS2OOO

Gold Level Poster
With regards to back ups, after many years of backing up my windows drive manually, I've only just discovered Windows "File History" in control panel. Never even knew this was there as I've only ever used the system image option previously.

Seems to be working really well and having tested it by editing a document it does indeed keep the pre and post edit versions backed up.

I'm sure everyone already knew this, but I didn't so maybe of use to OP.
 
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