[SOLVED] Can I Open A Hard Drive That Has Windows Installed On It

[zealous2120]

So I was being dumb, and decided to boot my PC in safe mode and I'm now locked out. I've tried everything, used my normal password, tried using my microsoft password and I'm stumped. So I've decided to put windows media creation tool on a usb and hard reset, but I have personal files I want on the hard drive with windows installed on it. So I was wondering if I use my second hard drive and install windows on it if I could old just get the files via windows file explorer from the old hard drive.

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Generally, yes. The only thing you might run into is security issues with Windows. File permissions, Bit Locker if you had it enabled. Now, I'm not sure hoe you got locked out, but generally without a specified admin account there is a timed unlock of your account. So, if it has been sitting around for a while, you might give it one more try before putting in all this work. Additionally, you could always boot to a USB drive version of Linux to recover your files. There are usually less issues with file permissions that way.

Good luck!

 

[zealous2120]

Generally, yes. The only thing you might run into is security issues with Windows. File permissions, Bit Locker if you had it enabled. Now, I'm not sure hoe you got locked out, but generally without a specified admin account there is a timed unlock of your account. So, if it has been sitting around for a while, you might give it one more try before putting in all this work. Additionally, you could always boot to a USB drive version of Linux to recover your files. There are usually less issues with file permissions that way.

Good luck!

By the way do password reset programs actually work?

 

[justin.m.beauvais]

Sometimes. Unfortunately that is the best answer I can give on that one. I've used them before on older versions of Windows and they sometimes worked and sometimes didn't. I haven't had to try one on Windows 10 yet so I'm not really sure.