Locked Drive
Locked Drive.-
I have a Dell PC – 8700, 16 Gb RAM and running Windows 8.1
Windows is installed in C drive, which is a SSD.
I had also Acronis Tru Image 11 Home. Since this software would not work with Win 8.1 I purchased an upgrade that works with Win 8.1 This was a downloadable upgrade, what I mean is I do not have the CD/DVD
I made an Image backup. When trying to use that backup, the computer restarted and after a few minutes while it was doing its job, the screen went black and after a few seconds came a message saying “Windows will try to repair your computer”.
After 5 minutes or so, I got a screen “Automatic Repair” Automatic Repair couldn’t repair your PC
Press Advanced options to try other options to repair your PC or “Shut Down” to turn off your PC
Log file: \System32\logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt Gave me the option of Shut Down or Advance Options
The first time I click in Shut Down in the hopes that it would came back to Windows. No such luck!
The second time I tried the Advance Options.
I inserted the Acronis CD but the machine did not see it.
Shut it down and with the CD on… still does not see it and go again to Automatic Repair.
I repeated that, this time with the Dell Operating System disk.
Gave the choice of Refresh, also Reset. I tried both options [first Refresh] and both times tells me:
Refresh your PC
The Drive where Windows is Installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again.
I assume Acronis locked the drive.
Where do I go from here?
The ideal would be to finish what Acronis started and come back to the configuration I have in the backup.
If not possible, I guess I need to unlock that [C] drive. No idea how that is done!!!
Your help would be most appreciated. Please be patient with me, I am 72 years young.
Thank you.
Dan


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Hi Steve!
I am writing now from a laptop. The information about what version of Acronis… is inside the PC that won’t start up.
I had Acronis Tru Image 11 Home. Since this software would not work with Win 8.1 I purchased an upgrade [2014 version?] that would work with Win 8.1 This was a downloadable upgrade, what I mean is I do not have the CD/DVD to look up the version.
My Dell PC [the computer with the problem] was having problems. Windows Explorer was very slow in opening folders. Before being able to copy a file, Windows was “calculating” the time it would take… for this task the machine would be “thinking” for several minutes when not crashing. I ran a sfc /scannow but it could not repair some of the corrupted files. Since I had a backup [about a month old] from the time the computer was running okay, I decided to restore my PC with that backup created by Acronis.
Yes, the backup is from the same computer. I was trying to restore to the same computer.
Does this information clarify the situation a little?
Thanks again.
Dan
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Dan, thank you for the extra information but I need to ask some further questions to better understand this situation.
How did you perform the restore operation for the Dell PC?
Did you start this from within Windows 8.1 or did you boot from an Acronis Rescue CD?
Where was the backup image stored that you used for the restore?
Was this on an external drive or a separate internal drive or partition etc?
What did you select to restore from the backup image? i.e. entire PC, selected partitions or disk drives?
How many internal hard drives does your system have?
With regard to the version of Acronis True Image, if you registered the software when you download it, then you should be able to go to your Acronis Account and find both the details of what version it is, and also copies of the software and recovery CD ISO image etc.
From you original post, I am wondering if ATI actually started to restore your computer or not?
You said: When trying to use that backup, the computer restarted and after a few minutes while it was doing its job, the screen went black and after a few seconds came a message saying “Windows will try to repair your computer”.
This sounds to me as if the Acronis restore may not have started and that something has altered with either the boot files or partition information on your computer.
At this point I would recommend going directly to the Acronis web site http://www.acronis.com/ and follow the options to Contact Support as you have a Recovery Issue here that entitles you to receive help in getting your system working again. You will need to login to your Acronis Account and have registered your True Image product.
See http://forum.acronis.com/forum/111708#comment-335853 for a recent confirmation of free support for recovery issues by one of the Acronis Support Engineers on these forums.
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Hi Steve!
I started from within Windows 8.1
I opened Acronis and selected the Backup I made before [and validated].
When I presented me with the choice of restoring C drive or all the partitions, I selected the partitions. Since that was the way Acronis did the backup. So much that when making the backup of C drive, the preselected name for the backup is “My Partitions”. Was this wrong?
My computer has 3 hard drives. The C drive [120 GB SSD with the operating system], J drive [1TB] and G drive [2 TB]. The backup was [and hope still is] in J drive.
I logged to Acronis and found out [thank you, again] the version is Acronis True Image 2014
Yes, Acronis started the recovery. First asked me to OK to restart the computer, and then started the countdown of the minutes left before finishing. Was in the middle [approximately] of the restore process when Windows started “Attempting Repairs”.
Yes my software is registered, but don’t I need some sort of membership or paid fee to get their support?
I really appreciate your interest in helping me. Honestly, my computer is my only companion. It may look exaggerated but this situation is overbearing at this stage of my life.
I just feel lost!
Thanks again,
Dan
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Hi Daniel,
The backup name can usually bet set when created, but if you did not change it, then it will create one on its own. As long as you selected all paritions on the original OS drive, you should be OK. I'm not sure if this is an older legacy/bios (MBR) image or a newer UEFI (GPT) image, but I'm going to guess that it's the newer UEFI one since your system came with Windows 8.1.
First off, it sounds like you have never been able to get the bootable recovery disk to boot at all? In the Dell Bios, make sure that secure boot is turned off. If secure boot is enabled/on, you won't be able to boot to recovery disks or recovery USB drives.
Once that is verifeid, fully power off. then turn the system on and immediately start pressing F12. This should get you to the boot override menu so that you can select options to boot from - to include your Acronis media. If you can select this and it still won't boot, you may have a bad .iso. You can download it from your account and burn it on another machine and try again and see how that goes.
Second thing I'm not sure about is whether any recovery has completely finished or not? It seems like it has bailed out each time? If you could clarify that, it would help. If it never actually started restoring and just quit, you may be ok, but the Windows bootloader could be corrupt.
The "locked" disk is a message I have received from Windows as well when my BCD got corrupted - this is probably not related to Acronis, but a corrupt bootloader. I have used the following post to repair my system that was in the same situation and it worked for me. It's a little in depth, but is step-by-step with pictures. It is good for 8/8.1 and 10.
How to repair the EFI Bootloader in Windows 8
I'm not sure why you we're recovering in the first place, but if Acronis never actually ran, this would hopefully allow you to repair your system 'as is' before the restoral failed. If Acronis did actually restore and you got this message, as long as all of the patitions from your SSD were in that image and it deployed them, again, hopefully this will get you running again.
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Daniel, I have not experienced this with other Dells, but see if this applies in your case as well before attempting the bootloader fix:
http://en.community.dell.com/support-forums/desktop/f/3514/t/19477669
When you disable Secure Boot, the Boot Mode switches to Legacy. Hit the pulldown on Legacy and set the Boot Mode to UEFI and leave Secure Boot Disabled. If you leave it in Legacy, you'll have to reinstall Windows.
You can run either:
- in legacy mode (which doesn't have a Secure Boot option);
- in UEFI mode with Secure Boot; or
- in UEFI mode w/o Secure Boot
Legacy mode uses the older MBR disk partitions. UEFI Mode uses the newer GPT disk partitions. Dell installed Windows in UEFI mode, when you boot in Legacy mode, Windows can't read the data in the GPT partitions.
It would be nice if when you switched the Secure Boot from Enabled to Disabled the Boot Mode stayed in UEFI and didn't switch to Legacy. But that's not the way the BIOS Setup is currently working.
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Hi everyone!
The Problem Was Solved!!!
Thanks to all for your help! Thanks too to Acronis support that guided me step by step to recover my PC.
They had me downloading an Acronis Recovery ISO and burning it to CD/DVD.
I have no idea why, but the BIOS did not have an option to boot from CD/DVD. We had to download some software [ISO to USB, that's the software name].
After that was very simple to use the Acronis software. I have no idea why the disk was locked. Most likely Acronis lock the disk to recover, but somehow was interrupted by Windows
"Attempting Repairs".
I am very happy to be reunited with my PC :)
Dan
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Hi Dan, that is good news that you have your system back and working OK again.
I have made a note of the ISO to USB utility as I am sure it will come in useful in the future plus it is free!
Thanks to Bobbo too for his advice in this problem.
Steve
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