Inaccessible Boot Device error in Windows 10

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

Ok so I used the package removal trick thought it was solved and disabled updates and rebooted BACK TO inaccessible boot device.

So this is what worked for me to get back into windows.  I downloaded kb4073290-x64 file (there is a 32 bit version also) from this link https://www.catalog.update.microsoft.com/Search.aspx?q=KB4073290 make sure to get the one for 10 pro and not server.  I renamed the file to KB4073290.msu to save on typing

Copy the file onto a USB drive and from the repair tool click advanced and choose to use a USB drive.  Next copy the KB4073290.msu to your windows drive for me that was C: it may be different fro you.

The scratch directory on the X: drive was not big enough for this operation so I went to C:\ and typed . . . md test . . . . and hit enter

next type the following command

Dism /image:c: /add-package /packagepath:c:\kb4073290.msu /scratchdir:c:\test . . . . and hit enter

This restored functionality to my machine.  I think now I will check for and install the latest updates.  Not sure what will happen if I reboot.

Hi,

I was in a similar situation (just with the exception that the 2

"UpperFilter" entries for {533c5b84-ec70-11d2-9505-00c04f79deaf} and

{71a27cdd-812a-11d0-bec7-08002be2092f} contained references to "VTrack"

for "Veritas System Recovery", and everything was running fine for

Windows 10 current branch (build 16299.299 aka 1709) and previews (up

to/including build 17046).

Beginning with Windows 10 preview build 17063 I was hurt then by the

GSOD/"inaccessible boot device".

In my case, I was able to solve that problem by injecting (via Windows

Recovery Envrionment) the (now obviously required ?) setting

"IoBlockLegacyFsFilters=0".

Unfortunately, that setting seems to be removed again when installing a

next Windows 10 preview build (leading to some GSOD again afterwards),

so at the moment I'm forced to remove the 2 "UpperFilter" references to

Veritas before any Windows 10 preview build update, and adding them

again (together with "IoBlockLegacyFsFilters"=0) afterwards ... not very

nice !

But even if this works for Veritas, it might not work for other

products, so I'd recommend to remove any "non-default" "UpperFilter"

references and test, if this solves the "inaccessible boot device"

situations for current/future Windows 10 preview builds.

And again ... this was the solution for my particular situation

("inaccessible boot device" after updating from Windows 10 preview build

17046 to build 17063 or 17074 when using "Veritas System Recovery"), but

we know of course there are many other things triggering that problem ...

Hi Bobby,

This could have resulted due to a corrupted system file. In some cases, it's been caused by third-party antivirus program that causes issues in downloading/installing important updates for Windows 10.

Since you have already used the SFC tool, we suggest proceeding in using the DISM tool to possibly fix things that SFC can't. This article System file check (SFC) Scan and Repair System Files & DISM to fix things SFC cannot created by ZigZag3143 (MS -MVP) would guide you in using the DISM tool.

You can also check the post of Rob_268 from this thread as a reference for a possible resolution to your concern.

Do get back to us with the results and if you have any other questions, don't hesitate to post back.