Inaccessible Boot Device error in Windows 10

OKAY Dave,

"I can do that"  😉 hehehehe (You probably know the reference.)

I am aware from what you have said with your degrading progress that you can't boot into anything. Had you thought of this the first time you were able to Boot up at least to Safe Mode, that is when you should have LOCKED DOWN WINDOWS UPDATE/MICROSOFT UPDATE(not trying to whip on you).

However, others maybe just starting this process so should be aware of this earlier.

I will be frank with you Dave, I have AU/WU/MU LOCK DOWN all of the times!!!! You are obviously experiencing for the FIRST TIME why, I do! When I was on W 7 and early W 8, that adoption came in extraordinarily handy.....

I am also an Insider Fast Ring(I have 6 partitions possible for OS's) so that partition is living out on the edge but LOCKED DOWN with regular Image backups as are my other 3 active OS. I NEVER EVER rely on MS to take care of me and mine, I have been let down to many times. With MultiBoot, Recovery Points don't work, so I use Tweaking Registry Backup every time I logon. I have had Recovery Points fail me too, in the past. I read some where(here I think) where somebody was trying to recover and found only one Restore Point left that wouldn't work.... well go figure MS, that's what keeps 3rd parties in these support businesses/efforts.

It sound like this particular PC is in rough shape, so be careful not to make it worse.

WinPE.....

• Windows ADK downloads - Windows Hardware Dev Center
• You want at least DISM, Tools(SFC,CHKDSK) and WinPE Components, there maybe others that you want???? They of course wouldn't go into WinPE.
• When Installation is complete, look in "Program Files" on 'Start Menu' or 'Tool Bar' if you use that method under ADK, for the CMD Icon saying something about WinPE.
• Have your USB(formatted NTSF default) or DVD(Erased) ready to go.....
• Using Admin Rights on Context Menu for CMD file, start it.
• I prefer to create an ISO so I can make several disks but I think one can go directly to disk(USB/DVD).
• If ISO and USB, get the latest copy of Rufus and build a single partition(Best) USB drive, then "Eject" it or "Burn" to DVD.
• Reinsert the USB and restart to see if it worked. It should Boot right into the USB Drive, then right into CMD.
• Play away.....

You might find NirSoft handy to, I use his Registry Scanner allot.

Best Regards,

Crysta

Crysta,

Well, as you have been made aware by this point, even if I managed to immediately block updates on this computer before they installed again, it wouldn't have mattered anyway.  If I immediately restarted and tried going into Safe Mode, it wouldn't have really helped.  In any case, given that the solution seemingly to the problem was found, I thought worst case scenario I'd just undo the update again (which didn't work and then started giving me an error trying to remove any of the other updates further).  Potentially, even if I were able to do it, it wouldn't help, as some others have stated it hasn't.  That being said, as you mentioned, the issue isn't necessarily monolithic, so it would be great to be able to do regardless.

Regarding having AU/WU/MU on lock down, again, this isn't my computer.  For all office computers I manage, I have Acronis do incremental backups of the image upon every shut down and restart (no more than once a day).  I can't manage all these machines 24/7 doing updates manually however; that would be crazy.  That is the purpose of the backups.  I am well aware of the unreliability of Windows (or Microsoft and potential failure of hardware components I guess to be more exact).  Regarding any issues in restoration, I've always managed to figure out and solve them.  Myself, I do indeed have AU disabled and do everything manually.  I also do the incremental backups manually because it can be intelligentally managed (instead of having an arbitrary sheduler).

In the case of the current PC in question, it is a laptop, and I did take every measure possible.  I got an external RAID enclosure in which I installed two 2.5" HDDs configured in RAID 1 for the user's data (and explained how for them to tell if one drive has failed and the array has degraded, apart from it obviously stopping to work).  I have also actually done a mirror image backup of the drive earlier one but this was over a year ago.  I've made a lot of software updates and customization to the PC since then and originally I thought it might be easier to fix the issue than to redo those things - perhaps learn a few things in the process.  Obviously, the first part didn't end up exactly being true, but at least there's some value in the second, though at this point I'm not sure there would be any longer...  Would've at least hoped a fix would've been out by down, like some way of installing a patch/hotfix through Command Prompt in the Recovery Environment.

Regarding the steps for WinPE, thanks!  Not all of them were entirely accurate but I figured it out.  What to install was pretty straight forward to figure out, though the options to select didn't explicitly state the mentioned selections.  By default, it all installs to C:\Program Files (x86)\Windows Kits\10\Assessment and Deployment Kit.  You can't find anything in the start menu by searching WinPE or anything like that, but a new folder is created called "Windows Kits" and from there you can launch "Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment", which is what I assumed you may be referencing when you mentioned CMD.  You didn't further mentioned how exactly to create the ISO or otherwise actually install WinPE onto a flash drive though, as Rufus can in fact only do that with an image file.  Within the "Assessment and Deployment Kit" folder, there is a "Windows Preinstallation Environment" folder which contains different installations for different architectures.  There is also a "MakeWinPEMedia.cmd" but it on its own doesn't do anything.  Without any further instructions or obvious tools to automatically create this for you (I assumed I couldn't just transfer the disk files from the "Media" folder under the, in my case, "amd64" folder), I just looked it up.  In the Deployment and Imaging Tools Environment, you just enter the following commands:

copype amd64 C:\WinPE_amd64

MakeWinPEMedia /ISO C:\WinPE_amd64 C:\WinPE_amd64\WinPE_amd64.iso

I used Rufus to burn that ISO image created in the C:\ folder to make the bootable media.  I think all the tools are actually inherent to the Windows Preinstallation Environment media so it didn't necessarily have to be downloaded with the Developer Kit.  That's actually what confused me which is why I asked for instructions in the first place, just for the record XD

In any case, using WinPE, I got the same error code in the end.  It doesn't let me do it.  The Windows image on the main drive is as stable as it would be with whatever corruptions/problems caused by the Microsoft updates.  All I've really done to further effect it before this problem is originally remove the update, had it boot, after which the blue screen started appearing again along with everything else that I mentioned (after the next restart), including this issue.  Out of curiosity, any reason why you thought WinPE might bring a different result as opposed to WinRE?  It would be the most up-to-date?

Thanks,

David

PS- **For anyone thinking this may be an issue which directly somehow affected the MBR, it's unlikely, as I actually have a backup image of my disk from late 2016, obviously including the MBR, and it is one of the first things I tried to restore after fixing the MBR wasn't working (before removing the update package).  Obviously it was to no avail.**Also, it's unlikely just by the fact alone that removing the update package allowed users to boot back into their OS even once.

Hit this issue a few days ago with my old i7 Gulftown hexacore based Windows 10 Pro PC running SEP x64 v14.01 RU1 (3752).  Initially fixed with a recent image restore, but the BSOD returned after applying all of the Windows / Office updates.  Tried again with the same result.  Finally, went back to a November image and reapplied all of the Windows / Office updates from then, which took a while and involved numerous reboots.  When it was finally back up to date, I noticed that just one of the updates has failed to install, namely KB89083 MSRT.  The PC now boots consistently without issue, with the same version of SEP.  Interestingly, subsequent runs of Windows Update do not attempt to re-install KB89083, so my conclusion is that it is MSRT that causes the issue, not any of the other Windows updates and not SEP.

Crysta,

BSOD happens again, it didn't solve my problem after all, don't know what to do.

I've tried to remove more installed updates, it's not working, still can't get into the desktop of Win10.

Seeking the working solution now.

Chalres

PS. I have seen TLDR; many many times over the last months but have never heard an explanation for it. I assume it originated in the Valley but I don't live anywhere near San Francisco. Could you break my ignorance?

Too long, Didn't read