Completely locked out of hard drive C:

[Azzoralore]

Hi there. A friend of mine managed to make the mistake to remove all permissions to access the C: hard drive, thinking that it wouldn't lock the owner and administrators out. We thought of reinstalling Windows with a USB drive. But the software that Windows asks us to use, won't load up. Due to that it needs to access the C: hard drive. He can't change any settings anywhere or install anything onto the C: hard drive. So I'm wondering. If there's any wormhole that's accessible without administrators permission, to work around that security and change the permission security back to default.

He has also tried to do a recovery without the USB stick. But that fails, because the system gets denied trying to access the recovery image.

We have also tried starting the computer in safe mode to see if the security permissions still persists during that mode, and disable it that way. With no luck.

Spent a good 4 hrs scratching my head, trying to come up with a solution. But nothing turned out. So I've turned to you guys, could you help us with this little problem of ours?

NOTE: He's using Windows 10

 

[USAFRet]

the software that Windows asks us to use, won't load up.

What software is this?

You should be booting directly from a Windows install DVD or USB.

 

[Azzoralore]

the software that Windows asks us to use, won't load up.

What software is this?

You should be booting directly from a Windows install DVD or USB.

Software: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

The problem is. That Windows won't allow us to make a boot-able USB Recovery. It wants administrators permission. And well. The message won't pop up. And the whole computer freezes for about 5 minutes and then a message pops up saying Access denied

Like I said. Won't allow us to make any form of recovery that we have access to at the time.


EDIT. Access gets denied no matter what we do. Because it requires administrators permission. He is set as owner and Administrator

 

[Rocky Bennett]

Use Rufus;

https://rufus.akeo.ie/

 

[USAFRet]

the software that Windows asks us to use, won't load up.

What software is this?

You should be booting directly from a Windows install DVD or USB.

Software: https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/windows-usb-dvd-download-tool

The problem is. That Windows won't allow us to make a boot-able USB Recovery. It wants administrators permission. And well. The message won't pop up. And the whole computer freezes for about 5 minutes and then a message pops up saying Access denied

Like I said. Won't allow us to make any form of recovery that we have access to at the time.


EDIT. Access gets denied no matter what we do. Because it requires administrators permission. He is set as owner and Administrator

Right. It is too late to make it now.
You use a regular OS install disk. How was the OS installed in the first place?

 

[Azzoralore]

Right. It is too late to make it now.
You use a regular OS install disk. How was the OS installed in the first place?

It was prebuilt. Came with Windows 8 already installed. And then updated to Windows 10 via Windows Update

 

[USAFRet]

Right. It is too late to make it now.
You use a regular OS install disk. How was the OS installed in the first place?

It was prebuilt. Came with Windows 8 already installed. And then updated to Windows 10 via Windows Update

So then, from another PC, you make a bootable Windows 10 DVD or USB.

The MediaCreation tool from MS, here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/

 

[Azzoralore]

Right. It is too late to make it now.
You use a regular OS install disk. How was the OS installed in the first place?

It was prebuilt. Came with Windows 8 already installed. And then updated to Windows 10 via Windows Update

So then, from another PC, you make a bootable Windows 10 DVD or USB.

The MediaCreation tool from MS, here:
https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10/

Alright. We'll try this out tomorrow, I'll keep you posted!