[14:35] <xu-help83w> Hi there! I'm using Xubuntu from a USB stick, since I have problems to boot into Windows, and I want to download it to reinstall it. I want to download the ISO on my second hard drive, that's in "/media/xubuntu/HDD1TB". I used the command "sudo mount -o remount,rw /dev/sda1" to make it writable, as otherwise I wouldn't be able to write stuff into
[14:35] <xu-help83w> it. After doing that, the GUI allows me to create and copy files into it, but it fails saying that there's no such file. mkdir also does the same: "mkdir: can't create file <whatever>: no such file or directory" (I have it in spanish, btw, so don't know what it says in english). What can I do?
[14:38] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: i don't think you need any terminal trickery since you can mount almost everything in Thunar or gnome-disk-utility, so open Thunar and navigate to your mounted drive location, see if you can browse /create/modify any files over there.
[14:43] <xu-help83w> Nope, I can't from there either. If I do right click -> Create a document -> Plain text -> Give it a name or default "Plain Text.txt" -> Create, it says "Couldn't create the empty file 'Plain Text.txt'. Error opening the file /media/xubuntu/HDD1TB/Plain Text.txt: No such file or directory. Do you want to omit it?"
[14:46] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: what is your second HDD used for? 
[14:48] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 For storing stuff, like movies, series, game installers, and other files. It's connected internally, just like the main one, in which I have Windows 10.
[14:51] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: was it used as some drive D on windows?
[14:51] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 I can see from Thunar some Windows directories: $RECYCLE.BIN, msdownld.tmp, and System Volume Information. The Disks utility says that it has only one partition, NTFS, mounted on "/media/xubuntu/HDD1TB", and partition type "Basic Data".
[14:51] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 Yes, exactly. It was F:
[14:55] <xu-help83w> I mean, the drive letter was "F" -- that was not an emoji!
[14:56] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: ok so my theory is the following, strting i guess with windows 8.1 and onwards, it introduced a very annoying feature called fast boot, the idea is that when you shut down your PC it doesn't actually shutdown but puts your PC in some sort of a hybrid sleep mode so when you turn it back on again, it starts fast and you can continue working where you left last time but, this feature is very annoying if after shutting
[14:56] <diogenes_Vx15>  down your windows PC you try to boot a Linux OS because when windows puts your PC into hybrid sleep mode, it locks down your HDDS by writing some hiberfile to it so you cannot acces them from linux, the only way is to either clean them from within Linux or to boot window and NOT shut down but reboot into Linux, since rebooting cleans everything and let's you access the windows drives from Linux.
[14:57] <diogenes_Vx15> sorry i ate some letters :)
[14:59] <xu-help83w> Ok, so I can't boot into Windows. How does "clean them from within Linux" work? Is it risky?
[15:00] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: this might be useful: https://askubuntu.com/questions/384429/cannot-remove-hiberfile-on-ntfs-partition
[15:01] <diogenes_Vx15> but you have to reboot once again into Linux.
[15:03] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 Fantastic. But, I'm using the Xubuntu Live, not installed on the drive. It doesn't matter? And then, is that remove_hiberfile safe? Like, can I lost my personal files or something?
[15:05] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: well when working with personal files it's always risky they say that the date which was not backed up is not important data :) i think you'd be better if you download the ISO on a different PC and reinstall your system the usualy safe way.
[15:13] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 Yes, that will be the way. So I'm going to download it from somewhere else. One more question: I should simply create the bootable USB stick, boot into it, and let the Windows installer run? Here's the problem I have: yesterday, about 50% of Argentina suffered a power outage due to some fires. There were two power outages: on the
[15:13] <xu-help83w> first one, the computer obviously shut off, but as the electricity went back about 20 seconds later, it turned itself on automatically, and Windows took a while to boot. I turned it off as soon as the login screen appeared, and then again it took a while to shut down.
[15:13] <xu-help83w> By the time it was already off, a second power outage happened, so I ran from my bed after seeing the lights weakening and flipped the switch of my PSU -- at the same time the electricity completely cut off. Hours later, it came back, I turned on the PC, and had a message that the CMOS settings were wrong. Did some things on the BIOS, restarted,
[15:13] <xu-help83w> and a screen told me "Reboot and Select proper Boot device". Then I tried Xubuntu Live, to see that the PC works fine and that my data is still on both disks -- and they are there. Someone told me that the Windows installation got corrupted. Most likely, but how?
[15:19] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: it's windows question but ok, it's kind of tricky because the standard way is that you have your system on the C drive and all your data on your D, E, F etc. drives so you just format the C drive you you go ahead with the installation BUT, this is where it gets tricky, on windows you might have you data all over the place, even in your downloads folder the data that you didn't manage to transfer somewhere else so, 
[15:19] <diogenes_Vx15> in this case you just state what drive to install the system to and proceed and, it should create a folder called oldwindows where your old windows files will be stored and a brand new installation of windows on the selected partition/drive, take this with a grain of salt because i haven't touched a windows system in awhile and the info might be outdated.
[15:27] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 Oh, sorry, but many thanks for still helping me! Yes, I have my Windows in C, and lots of files in there; indeed all over the place. I used to install Windows back then many times, and it effectively moved things to a Windows.old folder. I am concerned now because I never had this problem, where Windows won't boot. Something got
[15:27] <xu-help83w> corrupted, right? Do you know if it's okay to proceed with the Windows installation normally?
[15:29] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: i can only assume because windows is a very "shaky" os so i'm uncertain but, there's a channel here called #windows so you can do: /j #windows and ask there too.
[15:31] <xu-help83w> diogenes_Vx15 Okay then, I'll ask over there. Many, many thanks for your help and time, my friend! I hugely appreciate it!
[15:31] <diogenes_Vx15> xu-help83w: no problem, good luck!