Solved My Hard Drive Randomly Locked?

[SIW2]

HDD Password unlock SUCCESS with ZU.exe (zong unlock) - Page 2

 

[EpowShaon]

It shows the blinking cursor right before it starts the boot process, so something is halting it. I was wondering if you had a TPM chip, or other security device on your system. Or, did you ever have Bitlocker installed?

Unlock a BitLocker-protected drive

Bitlocker was installed but I never used it.

 

[XweAponX]

That link is no help, it assumes you can get into Win 8.

How To Remove BitLocker Encryption in Windows 7 - Unlock For Us

Try SIW2's link - That looks promising

 

[EpowShaon]

That link is no help, it assumes you can get into Win 8.

How To Remove BitLocker Encryption in Windows 7 - Unlock For Us

Try SIW2's link - That looks promising

Something I noticed was my first partition is 350 MB and keeps reverting back to something in Spanish even after I delete it and reformat it. I wonder if maybe my system is booting into that? It's never been there before.

 

[XweAponX]

Sounds like a virus of some sort, it's possible. If you can boot to Hiren's there are Anti Virus programs on the disk. Windows 7 needed to make some sort of 100 MB partition which held the grub loader, Windows 8 does not need to do this, so that 350mb partition ought not to be there.

If you can get into Hiren's and if Hiren's can access the drive, you can connect it to the Net and download Partition Wizard Home version 7.x- You can try to use that to expand the System partition to full disk size.

 

[EpowShaon]

Sounds like a virus of some sort, it's possible. If you can boot to Hiren's there are Anti Virus programs on the disk. Windows 7 needed to make some sort of 100 MB partition which held the grub loader, Windows 8 does not need to do this, so that 350mb partition ought not to be there.

If you can get into Hiren's and if Hiren's can access the drive, you can connect it to the Net and download Partition Wizard Home version 7.x- You can try to use that to expand the System partition to full disk size.

I think you may be right. Although, I'm not sure where the virus would have come from I've scanned all the files I normally use they're all 100% virus free. It may be the virus I got from a shifty installer awhile back that made me have to restore Windows that maybe stayed there. I'm about to boot into that CD, wish me luck.

 

[XweAponX]

I used to get shifty installers all the time, even from sites like cNet :/ I had one that installed a hidden version of mIRC, which connected to my Intuit folder and tried to send the contents to a remote IP address. Fortunately, I wasn't using Quicken at the time.

A rootkit sometimes will not show up in an AV scan, they get into your system and lock out things like Windows Firewall and prevent you from running any other AV programs. But you can only run a rootkit check on a drive from within the OS on that drive, there are ways to scan for them from without, but it's difficult. But this spanish partition, it's got to be part of your problem. Did you ever install Windows 8 using Spanish as the first language? Or, maybe the installer was in Spanish and you added English?

 

[EpowShaon]

I used to get shifty installers all the time, even from sites like cNet :/ I had one that installed a hidden version of mIRC, which connected to my Intuit folder and tried to send the contents to a remote IP address. Fortunately, I wasn't using Quicken at the time.

A rootkit sometimes will not show up in an AV scan, they get into your system and lock out things like Windows Firewall and prevent you from running any other AV programs. But you can only run a rootkit check on a drive from within the OS on that drive, there are ways to scan for them from without, but it's difficult. But this spanish partition, it's got to be part of your problem. Did you ever install Windows 8 using Spanish as the first language? Or, maybe the installer was in Spanish and you added English?

No it was always English by default. The sad thing is the first time I don't install Bitdefender on a fresh install of Windows 8 this happens, just my luck. Anyways, I have to reburn that ISO I tried it with PowerISO on a USB and got a boot error, it's burning with the program in the actual zip now.

 

[XweAponX]

I found this recovery disk tool, I'm going to download it and see if it's useful:

Windows 7/8 - OEM Recovery Partition Creator

I'll check it out and ask Shawn if we can use it for official forum tutorials.

Here's the actual Download page for it:

AnarethoS Place

 

[EpowShaon]

I found this recovery disk tool, I'm going to download it and see if it's useful:

Windows 7/8 - OEM Recovery Partition Creator

I'll check it out and ask Shawn if we can use it for official forum tutorials.

Here's the actual Download page for it:

AnarethoS Place

Alright. It finally booted (XP brings back childhood memories ). Anyways, I've successfully accessed the C:/ disk, I'm going to install that Partition Manager now and see if I can get rid of that Spanish partition.

 

[EpowShaon]

I looked in my C:/ drive, my User folder isn't there. Is that normal?

EDIT: I found it in a Windows search. However, I attempted to open Partition Manager but nothing happens when I click to open it.
EDIT 2: I installed a different version and it got rid of the partition. I think I might be able to install Windows 8 from this mini XP now. I noticed there are about 11 different Windows.old (from all the times I've tried to reinstall Windows 8) LOL.

 

[XweAponX]

Your User folder would be in the last one of those... Save that, get rid of all the others (after making sure that somethign important is not in the prior User folders).

 

[EpowShaon]

Your User folder would be in the last one of those... Save that, get rid of all the others (after making sure that something important is not in the prior User folders).

Yeah it was in the first Windows.OLD I've been transferring my files all day. I'm gonna try and just format my hard drive after they're all gone and transfer them back. It's probably gonna be awhile I have 32 GB of music and 16 GB of production tools to move over. I hope that formatting it works.

 

[XweAponX]

Should not take more than 4 hours, I have a data set that's 450 Gig, it takes the most of 8 hours to copy over, from USB to USB. From Sata to Sata, it still takes about 4 hours. Use "Teracopy" it's a lot faster.

 

[EpowShaon]

Should not take more than 4 hours, I have a data set that's 450 Gig, it takes the most of 8 hours to copy over, from USB to USB. From Sata to Sata, it still takes about 4 hours. Use "Teracopy" it's a lot faster.

TeraCopy is opened by default when I move files to the USB. It took about 45 minutes to move 11 GB, I'm not exactly sure why it's moving so slow.

 

[XweAponX]

Inside of Mini-XP? Before you move, you should click the button on the desktop that says "Install all drivers"- Even on my main system running 8, moving between my two USB drives usually caps off at 20mbps. From Sata to Sata they go full speed. I don't have any systems with USB 3.0, but under Mini-XP USB 3 ports probably run at USB 2 speeds. They try to accommodate all available chipsets in Mini-XP with the Driver Package, but sometimes a needed driver is not available.