How To Copy The "AppData" Folder From An Internal Hard Drive

Hi

Welcome to Microsoft community.

If you have access to your system, I'd suggest taking advantage of Windows' built-in backup feature. This handy tool allows you to safeguard your system data and important folders by creating backups on an external device. It's a brilliant way to ensure the safety of your valuable information.

Backup and Restore in Windows - Microsoft Support

Please let me know if you need any further assistance. Thank you. 

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hi

Welcome to Microsoft community.

If you have access to your system, I'd suggest taking advantage of Windows' built-in backup feature. This handy tool allows you to safeguard your system data and important folders by creating backups on an external device. It's a brilliant way to ensure the safety of your valuable information.

Backup and Restore in Windows - Microsoft Support

Please let me know if you need any further assistance. Thank you. 

Best regards

Derrick Qian | Microsoft Community Support Specialist

Hello @Derrick19 - MSFT

Firstly, thank you very much for responding, and I hope you will continue to do so moving forward; to my frustration, all momentum of contributions from other users eventually come to a stop on this and other forums, so I hope to be able to get the help I'll need from you in the long run as I continue working to solve this issue. I'm asking this and/or similar questions both here and elsewhere, so I've dealt with a few bouts of conflicting advice, or have otherwise been left to go it alone and take a frustrating trial-and-error pursuit in the absence of proper guidance from forum users. Hope you can empathize and be able to patiently help me out.

I don't know if you've had a chance to look at the link for the other related topic, so hopefully, you might clarify a couple of things for me:

• I doubt I can access the system on my hard drive by normal means; as explained in the other post, my laptop's operating system fell prey to an error that triggers a series of "Automatic Repair" reboots. However, I can largely access the drive itself with a hard drive adapter, which got me this far already. Again, if you'd like to reference my other topic, you would see a post of mine that effectively diagrams what tools I have at my disposal; using a separate laptop computer, along with the affected hard drive via the adapter, would I be able to use the Windows backup feature in more of an indirect fashion?

• Again pointing to my other related topic, the first reply I got on the subject suggested the possible complication of potentially copying or duplicating the broken Windows installation (you're welcome to see the comment for yourself); would this be a problem if I were to use the Windows backup feature? The same comment recommended a simple copy of the drive's content onto external storage without running that risk, prompting me to open this topic parallel to the other.

If you could answer these concerns for me, it might help me plot my next move -- thanks :-)

Just making a fresh post to keep the topic open -- I'm still having some issues, so feel free to leave a comment if:

• you know how to copy a hard drive's "AppData" folder without getting an "administrator permission" error

• you can recommend a successful means to back up the contents of a hard drive without getting an "administrator permission" error

• you may know of a means to correct the "Automatic Repair" reboot loop issue, with or without the need to back up the hard drive beforehand (if necessary)

Any helpful replies are appreciated -- thanks in advance

Sorry in advance for having to do this so often, but I want to make sure a new message is posted here to prevent the topic from being locked out.

I am still working on this issue on a number of different fronts. Once again, I encourage anyone here to feel free to leave a comment if:

• you know how to copy a hard drive's "AppData" folder without getting an "administrator permission" error

• you can recommend a successful means to back up the contents of a hard drive without getting an "administrator permission" error

• you may know of a means to correct the "Automatic Repair" reboot loop issue, with or without the need to back up the hard drive beforehand (if necessary)

Any helpful replies are appreciated

Thanks in advance

Forgive the long wait for a response, as I have been working hard to find a resolution on this matter elsewhere online since new replies on this forum post came to a sudden stop months ago.

While the means to do so was largely imperfect, I eventually reached a point of acceptance with backing up the contents of my affected laptop's C-drive, including the AppData folder. Again, while not a perfect copy, it was good enough to accept what I had and move forth with the actual source of the request, which can be found on its parent topic here: https://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/forum/windows_10-update/correcting-an-endless-automatic-repair-loop/9f4f6120-b40d-4936-82d2-24cf9de4b89d

I will post a more comprehensive message explaining what went into the process at a later date.

Thanks for everyone who managed to take a look at the topic, regardless of whether or not a reply was left to assist in the matter.

I've left a new message on the root topic from which this one was spun off. I will include it in full below. Thanks to every user who spared time to help out here.

Hello again, Microsoft Answers Community.

First and foremost, I wanted to take the time to thank everyone who spared the time to help me out with this issue, both on this forum and others, over the past thirteen-and-a-half months. Admittedly, it would have been nice to have more users engage with me here over that time so that I wouldn't have needed to join so many forums and create so many topics to resolve the problem, but whoever did engage to help out, thank you, regardless. The effort was truly appreciated. Each of you tried to help me navigate my way through every frustrating twist and turn of the repair effort, whether it was backing up the hard drive, opening the laptop, or trying to create external rescue media most recently; the whole ride was driving me bonkers, so I also thank everyone who commented for your patience and empathy wherever given. A thousand times over, thanks for everything.

Which brings me to why I've returned: in the past few weeks, I finally broke down and managed to pull together the funds to sign up for the HP SmartFriend Service, albeit begrudgingly. Working with one of the HP SmartFriend technicians via teleconference (as well as a Staples technician prior to that -- thank you for your help, Steven), it was determined that the hard drive was clear in another collection of scans, and through HP SmartFriend, I ended up purchasing the installation media USB through them. Several days later (about a week ago now), another SmartFriend teleconference led me through the reinstallation attempt, only to receive a series of error messages; from the results, the technician determined that the errors pointed to a fundamental problem that never rested in the software at all. Apparently, the root cause of the "Automatic Repair" reboot loop was a malfunction in the laptop's motherboard all along; as such, it was never feasible to correct the matter at home on my own, with or without professional guidance. Based on that, the only options to fix the error are to either surrender it to a professional for repairs, or to simply invest in a new laptop altogether -- whichever may come first.

So, yes, I got that bad news fairly recently. Facts are stubborn and depressing things sometimes; while I can accept the answer as to why the problem occurred, I hate that it took more than a year to find that answer in the first place. Since I don't currently have the estimated $300-$400 available to pay HP to fix the defective motherboard, I'll just close the topic with this reply as my "answer" to the question.

Sorry to say I couldn't solve the problem in a way that could help other users; at best, anyone else with this "Automatic Repair" reboot loop might want to consider that it's a hardware issue rather than a software problem.

To anyone currently facing the same problem, I wish you the best of luck.