Inaccessible Boot Device error in Windows 10

Thank you, thank you, thank you!

I had the same error and tried many other possible repair solutions from other sited.  I followed this and uninstalled the last package and my system is back alive and working again

in my case D was my drive

and I had to add a space in the ?Dism /Image:D:\  /Get-Packages"   command to get it to work  space between "\ /"

Thanks

Mike

FINAL PART:

The patch that is now offered on windows update, does not cause blue screens. 

But you won’t get to install it because it is a two step process and the second most important step won’t happen because the second half of the patch happens after another reboot and your machine will only boot once.

After booting from recovery media, locate your windows drive.  It should be the only drive that has a Users**{your name}**  folder

Determine which drive your windows is on. (It probably won't be C: in the recovery environment)

You can type DIR D:\users or DIR E:\users etc. until you see your files on your hard drive.

Use that letter in the repair procedure.  The windows letter is NEVER X:

Then follow the instructions (CAREFULLY).  Remember you can use notepad in the recovery environment.  Also you can mark and copy the long names of the patches from the DOS windows and paste them in a notepad file. Create a batch file from the notepad files that looks like this:  (in my case the windows drive letter was e: yours may be different.  Note the dates on the packages.  You should only need to remove the latest one.)

This was the batch file I created in notepad to fix the problem.

I put the pause in so you can verify which Packages are installed in your version of windows.  You need only remove the latest 2018 dated package.

MD E:\TEMP

MD E:\TEMP\PACKAGES

DISM /IMAGE:E:\  /GET-PACKAGES

PAUSE

DISM /IMAGE:E:\ /REMOVE-PACKAGE /PACKAGENAME:PACKAGE_FOR_ROLLUPFIX~31BF3856AD364E35~AMD64~~16299.192.1.9 /SCRATCHDIR:E:\TEMP\PACKAGES

(that’s all on one line).

reboot

(that's all one line)

reboot

The system should now boot into windows at this point.

(you may have to do another startup repair, but the system should boot. Even if it says that it can't fix the startup problem, Continue on to Load windows.  If it still won't boot, you may have to remove more packages.)

Once booted, remember you may not be able to boot again! (at least I wasn't and trying the procedure again did not produce a bootable machine. The patches that caused this condition are only half way installed. The remainder of the patch that caused this condition gets installed just before entering windows on your first reboot. So you might only be able to boot this machine once!!!)

My next step is to try doing a repair install (same version upgrade) from within windows.

Once windows boots for the first time, make sure you check your system restore settings. On both machines that had this symptom, system restore was turned off. This may be by design of the update that addresses Meltown and Spectre, but I can't be sure.

While you are booted, insert the your Windows 10 install DVD or Flash drive. If have only recovery media and not the full install DVD or flash drive, you will need to download it now. If you have bootable install media, skip the Next Paragraph.

You will need to download and run the media creation tool.

https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/software-download/windows10

Download the Media Creation Tool and run it.

**Do not select update now (**Although this may work) You want to save the image on your hard drive so you do not need to download it again.

If you don't have an 8Gb Flash drive or a dual layer (9GB not 4.5Gb) blank DVD, simply download the ISO image to a place that you can find again on your hard drive.

Once it is downloaded, you can mount the DVD by right clicking the ISO image and click open with and select windows explorer.

(Yes you can just click on the image and mount it usually, but some DVD suites don't work that way. Right click-"Open with" always works)

The Next Paragraph

Insert your Windows 10 media or open the mounted ISO image you just downloaded. Browse to that media.

**Run the Setup program. (**this will start the windows 10 install)

Select Install Windows, Select upgrade, Do not get the latest updates (You can get them after the install and after Restore points have been made.)

The upgrade (repair) install will preserve all your programs and files. I may take between 1.5 and 2.5 hours to complete. During the install, it replaces the files that cause the blue screen and also clears all the pending updates.

After you complete the update, check system protection settings. Right click start and click on search (near the bottom) and type in "system protection" (without the quotes) This will take you to the system protection (restore) settings.

Make sure that system restore is turned on for your windows drive (usually C:). If this is an imaged drive, you will have to configure System Restore to protect Your C: drive and not a phantom C: drive)

Once system restore is turned on for your drive, make at least two system restore points.

When Microsoft finally re-releases a fixed version of the patch that caused this, you can breath a sigh of relief. (they have.)

There may be another way to resolve this by identifying the exact cause of the blue screen and taking other steps, but for now (if your error was caused by the recent updates,) for the bad meltdown/Spectre patches, this always works.

wiz

Rememberif you do not immediately perform an in-place upgrade, the only other option is a system reset.

System Reset will allow your drive to boot again, but you are left without your programs and configurations.

It is possible to do a complete recovery of the build of windows that fails to boot. (Data, Programs, Settings, Everything)!

You do not need restore points.(even if you had them they would not help**)**

A backup copy of an earlier registry will not help!(drivers and patches are causing the issue)

Norton Anti-Virus is probably not at fault.(I have seen some issues like this due to Norton, but this problem is due to bad programming in the recent Spectre and Meltdown Patches.

What you do need are as follows:

1.  A bootable Windows 10 DVD or flash drive of the same version and number of bits as is on the unbootable system.

2. Another working system with imaging would be desired, but not absolutely necessary.

Here's what I have found.

You can get at least one single normal boot by following the following procedure:

1. Assuming you can, Boot from a USB or DVD recovery disk from the same version of windows 10 

    (you might not be able to do this due to a setting in UFEI BIOS.  See the section below on UEFI BIOS)

2. Select repair my PC
3. Select troubleshooting select command prompt.
4. Determine which drive your windows is on. (It probably won't be C: in the recovery environment)

You can type DIR D:\Users or DIR E:\Users etc. until you see your files on your hard drive.

5. See the next post

UEFI BIOS

Important note: Some people may have systems that have something called a UEFI BIOS and secure boot set on.

Until you turn secure boot off, you may not boot from and external media (USB Flash Drives, CD's, DVD's)

You must boot from external media to do the above fix!!.

To be able to change this setting, you must go into the repair/recovery environment on your machine.  To do this let it blue screen twice and it will attempt to fix startup (it will fail).

Select advance settings and troubleshoot.  Click on change UEFI settings.  This will get you into BIOS/CMOS.****Change your boot method by disabling Secure Boot and saving settings.

I cannot tell you more precise instructions because all machines have different BIOS Setups.  Once Secure Boot is disabled, you can then boot from external media. (You may need to hit a key to get to the boot menu.  Sometimes ESC or Space,  or F11 or F12)

More on the next post

The AMD that you refer to is the method of getting into 64 bit mode and 32 bit compatibility.  AMD released the  x86-64 instruction set in April 2003.  Intel originally tried something else with their Itanium processor released in 2001.  Now most everyone follows the AMD's x86-64 method.

So Intel  machines may need to remove a patch that says AMD on it just as well.  I just recovered another Intel Core i3 Laptop.

To repeat some of the earlier posts (which maybe some people didn't read), and

This applies ONLY to those who had January Updates that cause the Inaccessible Boot device message:

Do NOT fuss around with BCD fixes.  They are of no help here.

You probably don't need to a SFC or DISM /Check-Health either

In general, I will first outline the method.  Then I will show you exactly how to implement the fix.

Do the DISM Remove package command, try the reboot and see if you are now into windows.

If so, immediately perform an in-place upgrade of 1709.  That will fix the problem.

If you fail to do the in-place repair/upgrade you will most likely not get a second chance to reboot no matter how many packages you remove.

I used originally used Showster's method only to discover it was a one time shot.  Fortunately, I had imaged the drive on another machine and simply reimages and applied the patch.  If you can, remove the drive that won't boot and Image it to another drive before doing this.

Please Note:  For this problem (and only this problem) System Restore does NOT WORK! Even if you create a restore point on your first boot.

It's the fact that the original rollup fix is a two part process.  In installs the files that it can, then reboots and installs the files that were in use and couldn't be installed while windows is running.

When people first installed the bad patch, the second part of the install process could not take place (because of the bluescreen).

Once the bad package was removed from the image, you were able to boot, however you could not stop the second part of the bad patch from installing just prior to loading the first boot of windows.  That is the reason you only get one chance to boot.

The patch that is now offered on windows update, does not cause blue screens.  you can install it, but here's what will happen.

It will install the first half of the update. Then when it reboots it will bluescreen (,because the good second part of the patch has not yet replaced the files installed on the first successful boot).    You would need to have a successful second boot for the good files to finish replacing the bad one, and you won't get two boots.

The full details are in the next post: