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I use my PC to write software using Visual Studio.

A few days ago my PC needed to restart because of Windows 10 updates.

When the PC rebooted, it came back to the new blue screen.

Drive locked

A site called Neo Smart appears to know what is going on, so I followed some of their basic command line steps.

https://neosmart.net/wiki/the-drive-where-windows-is-installed-is-locked/

Most commands executed with no errors, until I told it to > bootrec /rebuildbcd, and it fails.

Error 1

Now I can't move forward.

Fixboot Access Denied

Neosmart 17 Fixboot

It looks very similar to this question with a solution:

How to unlock a Hard Drive and Refresh PC

But the solution above did not work for me.

What should I try?

jp2code
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  • Are you using Bitlocker or encrypted disk? Is your disk GPT or MBR? – harrymc Nov 11 '20 at 18:48
  • And have you advanced to step 15, or what? – harrymc Nov 11 '20 at 19:04
  • @harrymc no Bitlocker on any of my computers. Work does, and my Box cloud storage is linked to it. Would that have caused any problems? – jp2code Nov 11 '20 at 22:29
  • @harrymc not certain that it was step 17. All I have right now to get online is my phone, and the page spot was getting lost between trying to get screenshots and copying the text. – jp2code Nov 11 '20 at 22:33
  • What happens if you run `bcdedit /enum`? – harrymc Nov 12 '20 at 08:59
  • @harrymc - last night, the PC sat there at the blue screen for 30 minutes while I was searching for solutions to try on my phone. I looked up and the PC was at the Windows login prompt. That really shocked me! I logged in, and the problem seems to be gone. Is it possible that a Windows Update installed incorrectly and it just took Windows a while to figure out how to fix itself? Nothing I try worked, and I don't know what to put down for a solution. – jp2code Nov 12 '20 at 15:20
  • The solution was probably to let Windows finish the update, which itself was the one locking the disk. Would it be ok if I add such an answer? – harrymc Nov 12 '20 at 15:58
  • @harrymc - sure! I would not have freaked out personally if I were able to find such an answer on my own, and most people who come here are not going to read deep into all of these comments. – jp2code Nov 12 '20 at 16:58
  • Done - I put up my answer. – harrymc Nov 12 '20 at 17:08

1 Answers1

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The problem resolved itself for the poster when the computer was left alone for about 30 minutes. The disk then unlocked itself and Windows came up with the Login screen.

One possible explanation is that Windows Update was still doing some management stuff in the background, and it was probably Windows itself that was locking the disk.

One advice is then when the disk is locked after a Windows update, is just to wait for the problem to resolve itself. If after a long wait the problem is still there, then this is a different problem.

harrymc
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