I just wanted to thank you for your very clear addressing of this strange 'Locked Drive' problem. I thought it would take me days to find a solution but your post came up right away. Thanks again!
WINDOWS 8.0/8.1 Won't Boot/'Drive Locked' ? - Before doing anything drastic (like format and re-install...)
Beg or borrow a WINDOWS 7 INSTALLATION DISK to recover Boot Entry/ies
Loads quicker than WIN 8 DVD and repairs (quick) whereas WIN 8 [PRO/RP/CP & 8.1 PRE]
never have in 18 months of tryouts (have multiboot installations)
Try it out, won't make things worse - Windows 7 Installation DVD
More:
"The drive where Windows is installed is locked. Unlock the drive and try again."
Background:
First encountered on Restore of backup image (ATI-WD) on RAID 0 Two drive [SSD] array
Fixed: Using WINDOWS 7 Installation Disc - Repair Option
Comment:
During many WIN 8/WIN 7 installations on 4 different drives (on my own computer) MULTIBOOT (up to 7 O/S's) with BACKUP/RESTORE operations - WINDOWS 8 Installation Disk Repair has NEVER solved a startup problem
MICROSOFT should be ashamed that a feature that WORKED with WIN 7 was not brought forward to WIN 8 Installation Disk. Those that don't have one, borrow one (Using repair should not infringe any rules)
My Hobby is installing O/S's:
One drive has WIN 8.1 PRO Preview, WIN 8 PRO, WIN 8 Release Preview-64, WIN 8 Release Preview-32, WIN 8 Consumer Preview-64, WIN 7 - 32, WIN XP - 32 [EasyBCD ver 2.2 essential]
You need to be an enthusiast to install XP with SATA AHCI (Slipstream SP3, load AHCI driver on install)
Happy computing, WIN 8 Great, WIN 8.1 definitely worth having
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