It’s also the perfect time to make sure your malware and antivirus protection is up-to-date so you can run a deep scan of your drives and files. Restarting your computer in “safe mode” will allow you to do some of the maintenance tasks. You should also be proactive in making sure you’re protected against future locked hard drive errors by practicing regular maintenance on your PC. Just run the second, undamaged drive in administrator mode and move files from the first drive to the second. Depending on the age of your drive, you may want to replace it right away as well.Ĭomputer users with two hard drives installed have an easy solution. You’ll want to make a copy of those files right away. However, if you have physical damage to your drive - a common reason for the “blue screen of death” - it may work for a very brief time before crashing permanently. Locked hard drives can occur due to simple software or formatting issues. Once you have managed to unlock your hard drive, act immediately to restore and back up your files. Most computer professionals are trained on how to get your data off your PC, if necessary, but it’s recommended that you keep a backup either on a second storage device, such as an external hard drive or in cloud storage, for situations such as these. Unfortunately, a severely damaged hard drive cannot usually be fixed, and your data will need to be transferred to a new hard drive like a solid state drive. If all the above steps have failed, you may have a hardware problem. And you may also be prompted to install Windows updates because these can sometimes disappear after a refresh. It’s up to you to track down the individual sites or stores to download or install these apps again.Īlso, some drivers (such as those for printers, accessories, or routers) may be removed. When the refresh is performed, Windows will create a list of the programs it removed for you to refer to. To continue using a computer after a system refresh, you may find that you need to reset your user settings and firewall preferences, as well as reinstall some third-party programs.

If it worked properly, you’ll notice that some settings changed and programs have been removed. When it’s finished, you’ll be prompted to reboot your computer and see if the refresh worked. The wizard will walk you through the steps needed to complete the process. Refreshing your computer should not harm or erase files. This process may be your last opportunity before moving on to outside help. If not, you will want to move on to step five. Restart the computer and see if you can boot normally again.Select the “restore” option, choosing the earliest date from the list or the last known date that your computer was working properly.

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