How to reinstall Windows 10 on locked drive?
Hello,
tl;dr: how can I reinstall Windows 10 when it says the drive is locked?
My son built a computer for me years ago when I was playing RPGs, now I want to update it for graphics editing (adobe illustrator, etc). It had an AMD Ryzen 7 1700x processor that wouldn't work with Windows 11, so I got a Ryzen 7 5800X, updated my BIOS, and installed the new Ryzen.
Then I got the 0xc000000e error, and it told me I need to reinstall Windows 10. I have a usb with the Windows 10 install files and changed the BIOS to boot from it, but it said the Windows drive is locked. That screen says to press Enter to try again or Press F8 for Startup Settings, but neither key actually does anything. Then in a minute the computer turns off.
How bad is this?
Answers
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You're trying to a clean install, correct? Were you booted into the installation media when this error occurred? If not, you'll need to boot into it an do a custom install, wipe the drive from there.
Boot Menu keys:
ASUS - F8
MSI - F11
ASRock - F11
Gigabyte - F12
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Thank you - it's an ASUS. Will that wipe the whole drive?
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That would, if you're looking to repair it there are some other options with trying to repair the boot sector. That should get you back to the stop code, then we'd need to try to figure out what the issue there is and see if it'll get into audit mode. I was going to post some instructions, but we'd need additional information first. Boot to the media. Do Shift+F10, type Diskpart, enter. List disk, enter. List vol, enter. Screenshot what you see and post it here.
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Hi - thanks, I'm back and this is all I'm doing for the rest of the day...
I booted to the Windows 10 usb and this was as far as I got. Shift-F10 didn't do anything.
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You need to select Windows Setup (64-bit) to boot into the media first. But lets try something else. Locked drive is most likely caused by the TPM not being cleared after the CPU swap. Follow the instructions here to disable TPM so that we can at least try to boot: https://www.asus.com/support/FAQ/1047459/
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okay, I did that and it rebooted to windows boot manager
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Loading files... select language etc., now it's at Windows setup - install now or Repair your computer
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Let see what it does without TPM enabled. Remove the Windows flash drive and try to boot. See if you get a stop code error again first.
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I got the 0xc000000f error again
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Alright. Boot to the USB flash drive, 64 bit. Then Shift + F10.
Diskpart, enter.
List Disk, enter,
List vol, enter.
Need those screenshots.
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I also need to clean my screen. Thank you. You are hero. :)
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Looks like Disk 0 is your windows drive and the Windows partition is H:. Lets make sure.
Select disk 0
list part
What do you see?
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Alright, it's kind of confusing. The 440GB partition should be windows but it's labeled as Storage. Do you recall your C: drive showing up as 'storage' in Windows?
If not, lets poke around and figure it out. Do:
exit
C:
dir
(screenshot)
H:
dir
(screenshot)
Should show us the root structure and tell us more.
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My son set all of this up ages ago and I didn't pay much attention at the time.
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This is kind of a mess. H: is your Windows partition. It's on Disk 1. Your system partition is on Disk 0. This is something you tend to see when drives get cloned. Lets try this.
select vol 3
assign letter=S
bootsect /nt60 H: /force
bootrec /rebuildbcd
Stop and let me know if you see an error.
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It didn't recognize the bootsect command.
after
DISKPART> bootsect/nt60 H:/force
it gave me a list of valid commands
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same result
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bootsect /nt60 H: /force
My mistake again, I didn't see it. Space after bootsect, after /nt60, and after H:.
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bootsect space /nt60.
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Y, enter.
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operation completed successfully
H:\>
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Alright, reboot and see what we have.
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did I want to leave the windows usb in?
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