I set up my external hard drive as active and now my OS wont start

[Leo]

Hi everybody, I’m not an expert about this, and I really need some help. I’ll try to add as much details as I can about the problem. Thank you in advance!

So, I wanted to transfer some files from my External Hard Drive to my PC but when I plugged the External Hard Drive on the PC (Windows 10), the External Drive wasn’t showing up on Windows Explorer, so I did a quick google search about this and I read that I needed to assign a letter to the External Drive, on the Disk Management settings.

But before I assigned the letter to the External Drive, I right clicked on it and then clicked on “Mark partition as active” (that’s where I screwed up, and I even got a message saying this could damage the OS, and I just confirmed it - I was really stupid, I know). After doing this, I assigned a letter to the External Drive and it showed up normally on windows explorer and continued what I was doing.

The problem is, after I turned the PC off, and tried turning it on the next day, the OS didn’t start and I got this message (attached image bellow). So what I tried to do in order to fix it was open the Bios settings and I tried to set my main Drive as the first option to boot the PC, but it didn’t work, and after doing this I couldn’t even acces the Bios settings through the keyboard shortcut anymore.

So I took the PC to a Computer Repair Shop nearby and they said they would need to format the Operational System, and I said ok, as long as I didn’t loose my files. They assured me I wouldn’t loose any files because they could do a backup before formating the OS. The problem is: It’s been 3 weeks already since they have my PC and they said they are facing a lot of trouble doing the backup, because everytime they try to access my HD through another machine, an error occurs and they can’t do it. Maybe it’s because of the Antivirus I had (Kaspersky Security - free version)? I’m not sure if it has anything to do with it. Or some security system that doesn’t allow my data to be accessed, or even some virus? I have no clue, but I’m starting to think they won’t be able to recover my data. Maybe I should take it to some other repair shop?

I don’t know what to do, and I really don’t want to loose my files, so please, if any of you guys have any ideas to help me, I would deeply apreciate it.

The specs from my PC are:

Asus motherboard (I can’t recall the model, and I don’t have the box anymore)
Windows 10 - 64 bits
8 GB of RAM
Intel I5 processor (can’t recall the exact model as well)
1 TB Hard Drive

[ATTACH type=“full”]8260[/ATTACH]

[Rustys]

Since you do not have the system infront of you there is not that much that could be done.

What was the drive letter that you assigned to the external drive?

have a read here

https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/all/windows-10-error-the-boot-configuration-data-for/d027aae6-4378-4717-9413-880e0b88c1b4?page=1

https://www.laptopmag.com/articles/fix-0xc0000034-error-windows-10

[phillpower2]

Thread moved to the more appropriate forum.

Easiest thing to do in this situation would be to remove the original boot drive, fit a new or a formatted drive in the computer, clean install Windows and the system drivers on the new drive, put the original drive back in as a data only drive, see if you are able to access the drive using Windows Explorer, if no joy, try Recuvva (free) or similar, if you have another working computer the steps for using Puppy Linux on a USB device can be provided. as an alternative means for data recovery.

[Bastet]

If the PC isn’t in front of you then it’ll be difficult to suggest fixes.
I can only suggest that the repair shop download Macrium Reflect free, create their boot media & boot the problem PC with this & try to image the drive from the recovery environment. If this still doesn’t work then you may have to lose all your files.

I would recommend in future that before doing anything like this again that you use imaging software to backup the PC so you can easily recover it.

[Rustys]

need any further assistance

[phillpower2]

Just a heads up , the same OP by the member has been abandoned elsewhere where they revisited the forum but chose not to acknowledge my request that they decide on which forum they wished to continue, I will be giving my free time to those who are both worthy and appreciative of it.

[Rustys]

Thread closed has not responded to none of the forums they have posted.