I recently swapped out the HDD from my old Windows laptop and installed Debian on it. Now, I want to mount the old HDD to recover my files, but I'm running into a problem. The system says that Windows hibernation is preventing me from writing to the drive. I still have all my Windows folders and files intact, and I want to know how I can access the drive without wiping any data. Is there a way to disable hibernation or fast startup from Linux, or do I need to take other steps to avoid losing my data?
1 Answer
This issue often arises because Windows 10/11 goes into a hibernation state, which means the disk isn't fully released for use. To fix this, you should ensure that the laptop was completely shut down before you removed the HDD. You can try to right-click the files in Linux and select **Open As Root** to help with permissions, but that might not enable writing.
I can copy files from the drive, but the write function is still blocked. Would using Open As Root allow me to write to it?