I can't make a blank file on my hard drive after trying to fix it with a Windows 11 repair disk.
I can't make a blank file on my hard drive after trying to fix it with a Windows 11 repair disk.
I don't know what to do next. I bought a new PC made by a big company that should be okay. Waited for my monitor to arrive. Set everything up. It wouldn't turn on right (I complained to the seller). I used the Windows 11 disc to fix the computer because keeping waiting was getting too much trouble. After that it started working, but now I can't write files to my 8TB hard drive (WD Red Plus). I ran a check and said there were errors so I let the computer restart and try again. It still won't save new files or make changes on the E: drive. When I try to save something, it says an error message. So what details would be helpful? -- more info -- so I just tried editing a file that was already saved on the E: drive. This file came from another machine via my network before I fixed my Windows install. Any text files on SPEEDY's E: drive can be edited by anyone else who is on my network. But I cannot make a new file or save changes to this old file if it's on that HDD. Even though I am able to read the file and edit it normally, I can't create anything new here either. When I tried adding a line to that test file and saving it, everything looked fine.
Stop thinking about just "repairing." Maybe try completely wiping everything and putting a new Windows 11 version on your drive? Here is how to do a clean install of Windows 11, version 23H2 or newer. This guide will walk you through the process step by step. You can also use it for older versions if they work in the same way as this one, though some screens might look different.
I am currently moving all stuff from E: to F: so I can fix my ugly hard drive and see if that helps. Sure, there might be a way to remove those annoying permissions without copying files first, but honestly I don't know what they are. If anyone says it would help, please tell me. For now I am just copying data from E: to F: and reformatting E (which had no errors on chkdsk). Oh well. I ended up fixing this by doing a repair & at least the computer boots properly. I know one thing I should do right before starting is let Windows 11 Pro get updated (noooo!). It's possible that this was done right after the box arrived, and that is what made it unstable.
Is it possible that drives E and F are involved? Maybe not just partitions on one drive? The permission issue might be because you're trying to copy a big folder like Library, Documents/Music, etc... Just do a full wipe and reinstall. Then everything should work again, including Windows Updates.
C and D are SSDs with 2TB each, while e and f are both 8TB SATA hard drives from the WD Red Plus line with a capacity of 256MB each. It still feels weird that Windows 11 is making this distinction between drive sizes like that. The permissions issue might be because you're trying to copy the whole Library folder or Documents/Music/etc... I think you are mixing up things here. I can't create a new file on E no matter what. It doesn't matter if I try to just make a new text file, or if I try to make a second copy of an existing file that is right there in the same directory (copy and paste). It all fails. This isn't about the permissions on a single file being copied to E. It's actually about the permissions on the entire drive itself. After figuring this out, I started backing up e onto f so I can reformat e. Before this happened, e was fine. Then an OS glitch gave it restrictions that make it impossible for anyone to create new files, not even if they are on a different machine. However, everyone can still edit existing files there.
Have these big hard drives been used before? Maybe they were used in a RAID box like a giant storage bank? Check CrystalDiskInfo to see if your drives are healthy. First, make sure you have plenty of room on the drive's settings page. Be careful because Windows sometimes rounds off numbers and forgets how much space is actually taken up by files that manage the system. Does it feel full even though there might still be free space? Second, permissions might be wrong even if you never changed them. I would run this command to fix things so they use default settings: Reset permissions on drive assigned E: ICACLS "E:\" /reset /T /C ICACLS "E:\" /inheritance:e /T /C And then do the same for F: with different commands. If you still can't make it work, I would clean the drive using DiskPart (run -> DiskPart). Be careful! Check that you are really formatting the drive you think is broken. Label each drive something easy to remember like "My Laptop" or give them numbers they know like disk 0, disk 1. DISKPART> list disk DISKPART> select disk [0] DISKPART> clean This command will erase everything and turn off the disk so it's safe for a start-up. You'll need Disk Management in Windows (press Win+X then K) to put them back together with new partitions. If all else fails, you might lose your data forever if you don't have more backups. So be sure to keep at least three copies of your stuff: two on your hard drives and one online somewhere safe in the cloud.
Is the drive set to just read? If yes, I'd check CrystalDiskInfo like Buffer0195 suggested because that drive might be failing for safety reasons. You can turn it on or off like this: https://superuser.com/questions/1742390/...-read-only