How to Backup Your Data When Windows is Not Loading

Sometimes Windows operating system will not boot up because of various reasons. This will block access to your data on the hard drive. Taking it to the technician, you would get bashed with the charges for the service, especially for the data recovery service.

The valid reason for Windows operating system not loading is the malicious software program that you have installed on the computer before you shut it down last time. The malicious program might have destroyed the files related to Windows boot up.

Another reason that sounds like backstabbing is that when changing the operating system. When there is a need to change the operating system on the computer and you are already half way close to complete the installation, the disk will not let you proceed. What actually happens here is that after formatting the disk partition to have a clean installation, it will show an error saying, “Windows cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is of the GPT partition style.”

Changing the format of the disk from one format to another will erase the data on any other partition completely on the hard drive. This will lead to data loss.

Don’t even think of recovering the data later. Because changing the disk format will disturb the file storing table structure which is needed to be constant for any recovering tool or software to recover the data that is deleted/formatted.

Don’t lose hope. Hang in there. There is a way to back your data on to external hard drive or thumb drive without using any 3rd party software or hardware tool. To do this process, you would need a Windows operating system DVD or bootable USB drive.

Backing up your data on to external drive

Warning: We are going to use some advanced techniques using the command prompt in this process. Doing them wrong might destroy your data and hard drive. So, I advise you to only proceed if you can analyze and understand the information that is shown on the command prompt screen.

Step 1: Insert the OS DVD or bootable drive and boot into it (go to ‘boot options’ while booting and choose the DVD RAM/Removable Drive).

Step 2: Proceed until you see the ‘Install Windows’ button on the screen. Now press ‘Shift+F10’ to open Command Prompt(CMD).

Step 3: Now connect your external drive through the USB port and type ‘Diskpart’ command in the prompt and hit ‘Enter’.



Step 4: Now type ‘list volume’ command to see all your disk drives that are connected to your computer. Check if you can see the external drive connected. Let us suppose the external partition drive letter be ‘F:\’.

Note: If you are sure about the external drive, then you can proceed with the process. If the external drive is not detected, try to change the USB port and if it still doesn’t work, try another external drive.

Step 5: Now go to source drive/partition where the data you needed to backup exists. For example, if you have your data in D:\ drive, type ‘D:’ and hit ‘Enter’.

Step 6: You have to be precise while backing up data as there may not be much storage available on an external drive. So, check what folder you wanted to back up. To see all files and folders on the D:\ drive, type ‘dir’ and hit ‘Enter’.

Step 7: Now enter the following command to copy the entire folder and subfolders to the external drive. Let us suppose the source folder to be backed up be ‘MyData’ on D:\ drive. Then the command would be,

xcopy D:\MyData F:\ /E

It will copy all the files, folders and subfolders from the specified source to a specified destination. It is from ‘MyData’ folder on ‘D:\’ drive to external drive ‘F:\’ in our case.

Let the copy finish and notify you a message on the prompt. When it is done, enter into another drive and repeat the same process. When you are done backing up all the required files and folders, go to the external drive and confirm if the backed up files exists or not using ’dir’ command.

You may use other corresponding letters instead of /E at the end of the command. Here are what you can use and what they mean,

/P	- Prompts you before creating each destination file.
/S	- Copies directories and subdirectories except for empty ones.
/E	- Copies directories and subdirectories, including empty ones. Same as /S /E. May be used to modify /T.
/V	- Verifies each new file.
/W	- Prompts you to press a key before copying.
/C	- Continues copying even if errors occur.
/I	- If the destination does not exist and copying more than one file, assumes that destination must be a directory.
/Q	- Does not display file names while copying.
/F	- Displays full source and destination file names while copying.
/L	- Displays files that would be copied.
/H	- Copies are hidden and system files also.
/R	- Overwrites read-only files.
/T	- Creates directory structure, but does not copy files. Does not include empty directories or subdirectories. /T /E includes empty directories and subdirectories.
/U	- Copies only files that already exist in destination.
/K	- Copies attributes. Normal Xcopy will reset read-only attributes.
/N	- Copies using the generated short names.
/O	- Copies file ownership and ACL information.
/X	- Copies file audit settings (implies /O).
/Y	- Suppresses prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.
/-Y	- Causes prompting to confirm you want to overwrite an existing destination file.
/Z	- Copies networked files in restartable mode.

Once the files and folders are backed up, you can convert the hard drive format (in case of GPT partition error) and fresh install Windows again.

Comment below if you face any problems in this process. I will be sharing the possible solution at my reach.