Access denied to internal Windows E: drive

Butev

Prominent
Jul 18, 2017
2
0
510
I recently built a pc and decided to take the drive from my old laptop and connect it to the PC to get my stuff back. I did this straight after I built it and moved a few things, but yesterday decided to put it in to use as extra storage.
However, now I'm getting the error message " E:\ is not accessible. Access is denied". I'm aware of changing permissions but I'm not sure whether to try it because the drive has Windows 10 on it. It's probably worth noting too that I do not have the full version of Windows 10 yet because I was hoping I could take it from the drive.
Any help will be greatly appreciated
 
Solution
try making this on another PC: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ - ubuntu ignores windows permissions

Do you know the email address you registered your copy of win 10 on? Do you know the licence key? If you know both of those, you should be able to contact MS on a number shown in settings/update & security/activation as MS are only ones who can tfr the licence now.

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
Was windows 10 on laptop an update from 7 or 8? If so, if you put hdd back into laptop and then do this: Reactivating win 10 after hardware changes, you can move the licence across to new PC - just realise it won't work on laptop anymore.

Have you moved all the files off it you want to keep? If it works in old laptop still, perhaps copy things off it there. Then if you want to wipe it and use it as storage, go to settings/update & security, recovery - Under advanced startup, click restart now

choose troubleshoot
choose advanced
choose command prompt
type diskpart and press enter
type list disk and press enter
this shows all drives available, DVD/USB and hdd, make note of hdd number
type Select disk X - where X is the number of the hdd you want to wipe, change X to that number and press enter
once the drive you want to wipe is chosen, type Clean

then just put it in new PC and it should work fine since its blank, you just need to use disk management to format it again.

Also, with the new install, do 2nd part of the reactivate windows link to activate it once you deleted old hdd,
 

Butev

Prominent
Jul 18, 2017
2
0
510
Thanks for the reply. Windows 10 was an upgrade from the version of Windows 8 that was on the laptop. But the problem is, that laptop won't boot. After taking the hard drive out, the laptop refused to boot properly. It has done this before and worked after being left alone for about a year.
I'm unable to move the files from the drive on this PC because I'm unable to access it, which was why I presumed it was a permissions problem.
 

Colif

Win 11 Master
Moderator
try making this on another PC: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/ - ubuntu ignores windows permissions

Do you know the email address you registered your copy of win 10 on? Do you know the licence key? If you know both of those, you should be able to contact MS on a number shown in settings/update & security/activation as MS are only ones who can tfr the licence now.
 
Solution