[Fixed] Error 0x80070780: The File Cannot be Accessed by the System

Error 0x80070780: The file cannot be accessed by the system

"Recently, my windows 10 computer suddenly stopped functioning properly i.e. no applications would load and I wasn't able to open any files. When copying any files over to a USB stick, the error message '0x80070780: the file cannot be accessed by the system' pops up. I have looked online for some solutions to the problem, but they didn’t work. So, is anyone able to suggest: what the cause of this problem is, and any solutions I can take to be able to copy over the files from my computer to a USB? Thanks."

Usually, the "Error 0x80070780: The file cannot be accessed by the system" occurs when you are trying to delete, copy or move files on your computer. This issue may happen in Windows 11/10/8/7 due to various reasons. After careful investigation and comprehensive analysis, we have accumulated the most possible reasons for this issue and recommended you the most reliable ways to fix the error code 0x80070780 on your computer.

Why the file cannot be accessed by the system?

When you get caught in this issue, you must want to know what triggered it in the first place, which may also help you solve the problem in a targeted way. The following aspects are the most common reasons behind the occurrence of error code 0x80070780.

✦ No administrator permissions. In general, you may be using your computer with a user account, which doesn’t get all the permissions of computer. Therefore, the error 0x80070780 could be triggered due to the loss of admin permissions to copy or delete certain files you want to operate.

✦ Corrupted system files or folders. Sometimes, some system files or folders will be damaged by improper operation or unknown errors, so it will prevent you from moving them.

✦ Disk errors. Disk errors will directly cause the failure to open your files or folders, which can be regarded as a way to protect the data on it.

✦ Missing drivers. Drivers play an essential part in connecting your OS with the hardware. So, if the drivers are missing, the files or folders will be disconnected, so that you cannot access to it normally.

✦ Unknown virus or malware infection. This may lead to various possibilities that file cannot be accessed by the system.

How do you fix error 0x80070780 "The file cannot be accessed by the system"?

After having a glimpse of the possible causes, you may basically understand what situation you are in. Here we bring you five methods that you can apply to get rid of the issue. Please look through them one by one first and choose one of them you think is more relevant to your problem and fix it.

• Way 1. Run as Administrator
• Way 2. Recover partition
• Way 3. Perform Disk cleanup
• Way 4. Run a CHKDSK scan
• Way 5. Reinstall device driver

Way 1. Run as Administrator

No matter which method you will choose after reading, this way must be your first choice to try. It may help you quick fix the 0x80070780 error and access your files or folders successfully.

Step 1. Input "control panel" on the search bar and hit "Enter" to open the Control Panel window.

Step 2. Click "Change account type" under "User Accounts".

Step 3. In the pop-out window, choose the user you would like to change and click it.

Step 4. Then, click "Change the account type" on the left choices.

Step 5. Finally, tick "Administrator" and hit "Change Account Type" to operate the operations.

Step 6: Restart your System and you will log in as an Administrator. Try to copy, delete or move your files again to check whether the issue is solved. If not, follow the guide below to fix it.

Way 2. Recover partition

There are the risk of deleting source partition by accident, so the files on it are stored into unallocated space which cannot be used directly. Thus, the file fails to be accessed by the system. To this end, it seems available to fix the error if you recover the partition with the data back.

To avoid further damages to the files, it's a good choice for you to use a third-party utility like AOMEI Partition Assistant Professional to help you restore partitions in a secure way. As a professional and powerful software in managing your partitions, this tool is designed for Windows 11, 10, 8, 7, XP and Vista users, providing you with many useful and functional features such as converting system disk between MBR and GPT, recover lost data, migrating OS to HDD/SSD, moving folders from C drive to D drive, and so on.

Now, you can download the demo version to see how to recover partitions to fix the error 0x80070780:

Step 1. Install and open AOMEI Partition Assistant, click "Partition Recovery" under "Recover" menu. When you get into partition recovery wizard, select a disk that you want to recover and click "Next".

Step 2. There are two search method you can choose: Fast Search and Full Search. You can choose the former one for the first time because it's much faster one the latter one. If it doesn't work, you can turn to "Full Search" to go on.

Step 3. Select the lost partition and click "Proceed".

Step 4. Click "Finish" to exit after you receive the congratulations message.

Then, you can once again copy, delete, and move your files to see whether the error 0x80070780 is fixed.

Way 3. Perform Disk cleanup

If there is not enough space for files or folders to be copied or moved, you will also encounter the error code 0x80070780, thus, you can perform disk cleanup to free up more space. And also, it can clean some stubborn running system files you can't shut down directly.

Step 1. Type "disk cleanup" in the search box and hit "Enter".

Step 2. Select the disk you want to clean and click "OK" to get into "Disk Cleanup" window.

Step 3. Tick the files you want to delete and hit "OK". Also, you are able to click "Clean up system files" to remove older Windows restore points.

If disk cleanup doesn't free up enough space, you can enlarge the partition by merging partitions or allocating free space from one partition to another.

Way 4. Run a CHKDSK scan

Error code 0x80070780 can be caused by a disk error, so it's necessary for you to check the health of your hard drive. Here it’s recommended you to launch CHKDSK with Command Prompt, which can be used to solve bad sectors, corrupted files, and file system errors. Here are the steps.

Step 1. Press "Win + R" to open the Run box and input "cmd" to open Command Prompt.

Step 2. Type "CHKDSK [drive letter]: /f /r /x", and hit "Enter" to execute the command.

This command will automatically check and fix the file system errors on the drive where you cannot access files.

Way 5. Reinstall device driver

Missing device drivers will lead to the device not showing up in the File Explorer, which can easily make files or folders inaccessible. Follow the below guide to reinstall device driver.

Step 1. Type "Device Manager" in the search bar and press "Enter" to open the Device Manager window.

Step 2. Click "Disk Drives" option and choose the drive that causes the problem. Then right-click it and choose "Uninstall Drive" and click "OK".

Step 3. Restart your computer open Device Manager again, choose "Scan for Hardware Changes" under the Action tab, and then the driver will be reinstalled. Now, go to see if the error 0x80070780 has been fixed.

Note: Please make sure you have thoroughly looked through all of the solutions mentioned above. Try them one by one and stop when one works for you. 

Summary

Now, as we can see from this page, there are five workable ways to fix the error 0x80070780: The file cannot be accessed by the system. Other than the methods we have recommended above, there are other ways you can try to fix the error code 0x80070780, like formatting the drive, which will erase all the data on it, so it should be your last choice. All in all, hope one of them has worked for you so that you can fix the error as quickly as possible.