PLEASE HELP - Windows 10 Install Issue - Inaccessible_Boot

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simon14

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# 177350 30-Jul-2015 18:20

Hi all,

Yesterday i upgraded my Windows 8.1 to Windows 10 and everything went smoothly.

I then decided it was a good time to clean up my hard drive and install a clean version of Windows 10.

I went to Recovery and selected to remove all files and reinstall Windows.

After about 30 minutes i came back in to check how things were going and now the PC is stuck in a loop.

When the PC starts up, a screen appears saying:

"Your PC has run into a problem and needs to restart.

We'll restart it for you."

It then provides an error " Inaccessible_Boot_Device " and proceeds to restart.

It will do this over and over again.

Any idea how I can fix this?

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Ultimate Geek

# 1355454 30-Jul-2015 18:52

Hi Simon,
if it were me.

1.turn you PC off, unplug for a minute or two, while unplugged I have pushed the power button to confirm all power has been drained.
2. Turn the PC back on X fingers

If no luck
3.Remove boot media (windows install) either usb or dvd reboot X fingers

If no luck
4. Confirm boot media is working, on another machine
5. Confirm problem machine is setup to boot from boot media and try again.

Good luck

semigeek

1537 posts

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# 1355463 30-Jul-2015 19:19

DeepBlueSky: Hi Simon,
if it were me.

1.turn you PC off, unplug for a minute or two, while unplugged I have pushed the power button to confirm all power has been drained.
2. Turn the PC back on X fingers

If no luck
3.Remove boot media (windows install) either usb or dvd reboot X fingers

If no luck
4. Confirm boot media is working, on another machine
5. Confirm problem machine is setup to boot from boot media and try again.

Good luck

He isn't talking about Boot media, as in a USB or DVD, he is saying its an Inaccessible Boot Device. i.e. its not seeing the hard drive.

Anyway, to Simon, have you pressed F8 as the computer is starting and if you haven't, you may want to try that, and go to Last known Good Configuration.

Another option is Chkdsk /r at the recovery console.

Brumfondl

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# 1355465 30-Jul-2015 19:23

Do you have access to another machine that you can use to download and make a bootable USB or DVD of Windows 10?

simon14

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# 1355471 30-Jul-2015 19:28

semigeek:
DeepBlueSky: Hi Simon,
if it were me.

1.turn you PC off, unplug for a minute or two, while unplugged I have pushed the power button to confirm all power has been drained.
2. Turn the PC back on X fingers

If no luck
3.Remove boot media (windows install) either usb or dvd reboot X fingers

If no luck
4. Confirm boot media is working, on another machine
5. Confirm problem machine is setup to boot from boot media and try again.

Good luck

He isn't talking about Boot media, as in a USB or DVD, he is saying its an Inaccessible Boot Device. i.e. its not seeing the hard drive.

Anyway, to Simon, have you pressed F8 as the computer is starting and if you haven't, you may want to try that, and go to Last known Good Configuration.

Another option is Chkdsk /r at the recovery console.

Thanks for this. I can get into boot menu but cant find Last knownd Good config as suggested. Where would this be do you know?

simon14

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# 1355473 30-Jul-2015 19:28

Brumfondl: Do you have access to another machine that you can use to download and make a bootable USB or DVD of Windows 10?

I could do this, what about windows license ect? Wouldn't the same issue happen again?

semigeek

1537 posts

Uber Geek

# 1355474 30-Jul-2015 19:31

simon14:
semigeek:
DeepBlueSky: Hi Simon,
if it were me.

1.turn you PC off, unplug for a minute or two, while unplugged I have pushed the power button to confirm all power has been drained.
2. Turn the PC back on X fingers

If no luck
3.Remove boot media (windows install) either usb or dvd reboot X fingers

If no luck
4. Confirm boot media is working, on another machine
5. Confirm problem machine is setup to boot from boot media and try again.

Good luck

He isn't talking about Boot media, as in a USB or DVD, he is saying its an Inaccessible Boot Device. i.e. its not seeing the hard drive.

Anyway, to Simon, have you pressed F8 as the computer is starting and if you haven't, you may want to try that, and go to Last known Good Configuration.

Another option is Chkdsk /r at the recovery console.

Thanks for this. I can get into boot menu but cant find Last knownd Good config as suggested. Where would this be do you know?

It should have been there, but what options do you see?

Brumfondl

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# 1355480 30-Jul-2015 19:37

One person supports this post

simon14:
Brumfondl: Do you have access to another machine that you can use to download and make a bootable USB or DVD of Windows 10?

I could do this, what about windows license ect? Wouldn't the same issue happen again?

Since you already had W10 installed there is now a license stored in the Windows Store for you so when it asks for a key when installing you can just skip and when it installs and connects to the net it will retrieve the key and activate. My flatmate did this to his machine last night. Worked like a charm.

simon14

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# 1355483 30-Jul-2015 19:42

semigeek:
simon14:
semigeek:
DeepBlueSky: Hi Simon,
if it were me.

1.turn you PC off, unplug for a minute or two, while unplugged I have pushed the power button to confirm all power has been drained.
2. Turn the PC back on X fingers

If no luck
3.Remove boot media (windows install) either usb or dvd reboot X fingers

If no luck
4. Confirm boot media is working, on another machine
5. Confirm problem machine is setup to boot from boot media and try again.

Good luck

He isn't talking about Boot media, as in a USB or DVD, he is saying its an Inaccessible Boot Device. i.e. its not seeing the hard drive.

Anyway, to Simon, have you pressed F8 as the computer is starting and if you haven't, you may want to try that, and go to Last known Good Configuration.

Another option is Chkdsk /r at the recovery console.

Thanks for this. I can get into boot menu but cant find Last knownd Good config as suggested. Where would this be do you know?

It should have been there, but what options do you see?

The main menus i have are as follows:

Main
Advanced
Boot
Power
Security
Exit

Am i missing something? hmm

simon14

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# 1355486 30-Jul-2015 19:43

Brumfondl:
simon14:
Brumfondl: Do you have access to another machine that you can use to download and make a bootable USB or DVD of Windows 10?

I could do this, what about windows license ect? Wouldn't the same issue happen again?

Since you already had W10 installed there is now a license stored in the Windows Store for you so when it asks for a key when installing you can just skip and when it installs and connects to the net it will retrieve the key and activate. My flatmate did this to his machine last night. Worked like a charm.

I could try this tomorrow if all else fails then :)

Where would i download a bootable version thing of WIdnows 10? Is it as simple as downloading a file, putting it on a USB stick and then booting from the USB drive?

Brumfondl

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# 1355489 30-Jul-2015 19:46

One person supports this post

Use the Media tool found at http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

simon14

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# 1355490 30-Jul-2015 19:55

I was provided with this link which is quite helpful:

http://www.computerhope.com/issues/ch001205.htm

It states the below but i dont understand it. So frustrating... how could microsoft allow this type of thing to happen?

Inaccessible boot device during Windows setup If you're trying to install Windows or have finished installing Windows and are getting this error this could be caused by any of the below possibilities. Device driver for hard drive not loading If you have SCSI or RAID setup on your hard disk drives it may be necessary to load the third-party drivers during setup. As setup starts you should see a prompt "Press F6 if you have to install a third-party SCSI or RAID driver", press this key and make sure to load the proper drivers for your hard drives.

WHat third party driverS? How do i know whats required?

freitasm

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# 1355527 30-Jul-2015 20:20

Do you have a SSD? Did you by any chance used the BIOS config to change between SATA/IDE and AHCI modes for your drives?

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simon14

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# 1355532 30-Jul-2015 20:23

freitasm: Do you have a SSD? Did you by any chance used the BIOS config to change between SATA/IDE and AHCI modes for your drives?

No Ssd.

And no to second question either :)

Regs

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# 1355539 30-Jul-2015 20:52

as Brumfondl says, because you upgraded successfully your key is stored in the cloud and you can skip the prod key screens if you install (same SKU) from ISO

he also gave you the link that lets you download and create a usb boot drive and/or ISO images.

best option, if you don't want files on disk, is to use the usb/iso and remove all your partitions and let windows create it all again. once you're back online windows will activate itself

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simon14

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# 1355546 30-Jul-2015 21:01

Regs: as Brumfondl says, because you upgraded successfully your key is stored in the cloud and you can skip the prod key screens if you install (same SKU) from ISO

he also gave you the link that lets you download and create a usb boot drive and/or ISO images.

best option, if you don't want files on disk, is to use the usb/iso and remove all your partitions and let windows create it all again. once you're back online windows will activate itself

Will give this a try and report back.

Thanks so much everyone.

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