Inaccessible Boot Device

Popkiss said:

I tried the code suggested by Free Booter and the error I got was "Unable to access the image." I then decided to reinstall Windows as a last resort and I was not able to use the option to keep my files. I have most of these backed up anyway so I decided to go the whole hog and do a clean install. I made an installation disk on a flash drive and started to install from there and it won't even let me do that. I get as far as "Where do you want to install Windows?" and hit another brick wall.

Drive 0 Partition 1 System Reserved Size=100MB, Free=38MB Type =System (Cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is has an MBR partition table. Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.)

Drive 0 Partition 2 Size=930.9GB Free=714.2GB Type=Primary (Cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is has an MBR partition table. On EFI systems, Windows can only be installed to GPT disks.)

Drive 0 Partition 3 Size=547MB Free=81MB Type=OEM(reserved) (Cannot be installed to this disk. The selected disk is has an MBR partition table. Windows can only be installed to GPT disks. Windows cannot be installed to this hard disk space. The partition was reserved by the computer's Original Equipment Manufacturer (OEM))

So three partitions and it won't let me install to any of them. Where do I go from here?

Windows can be installed in two ways: Legacy-MBR or UEFI-GPT
To install as Legacy-MBR you must boot the installation drive as Legacy
To install as UEFI-GPT you must boot the installation drive as UEFI.

During POST, press F12 to launch the boot menu. You will see two options for the USB drive. USB UEFI (Name) and USB (Name). Select USB UEFI (Name).
Go to install and delete ALL partitions on the SSD till you have one and only one unallocated space and then proceed.

Many thanks to everyone who has helped me to resolve this issue. I have finally managed to do a clean install of Windows 10. Now the long slog to get my apps and data back on! Thanks again to all of you.

Once you've got it setup with your preferences consider making free backup images:

Macrium Software | Your Image is Everything
Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect

Thanks Zbook,

Sounds like a good idea!

@FreeBooter
My 9 month old Acer Aspire5 a515-54G with only HDD and W10 Home turned into a "brick" after I unplugged the power cord during booting (we had a brown out). When rebooting it went into "Repair mode" without any results, I then booted with my recovery usb drive and tried to restore from external backup drive that failed (won't boot, same Repair mode) I then restored the backup image file while reformatting the HDD with same result (won't boot). Finally still with usb recovery drive I reset (factory) that completely killed the UEFI partition I think as after that I get the "No bootable device" when booting. F2 still works but there is nothing listed under Boot Order.
Acer BIOS all have SATA set as RST-Optane by default that I changed to AHCI (also my recovery usb drive). I suspect that RESET (on HDD recovery partition) is RST-Optane compatible and corrupted the AHCI settings. I tried the default BIOS and sure enough it went to RST-Optane but still get the No bootable device message when trying to boot.
We live far away from an Acer shop or any PC repair shop, thinking of disconnecting the RTC battery and checking cable connections (HDD-Battery)? Any ideas what to do with a "brick"?
Frank

FrankW said:

@FreeBooter
My 9 month old Acer Aspire5 a515-54G with only HDD and W10 Home turned into a "brick" after I unplugged the power cord during booting (we had a brown out). When rebooting it went into "Repair mode" without any results, I then booted with my recovery usb drive and tried to restore from external backup drive that failed (won't boot, same Repair mode) I then restored the backup image file while reformatting the HDD with same result (won't boot). Finally still with usb recovery drive I reset (factory) that completely killed the UEFI partition I think as after that I get the "No bootable device" when booting. F2 still works but there is nothing listed under Boot Order.
Acer BIOS all have SATA set as RST-Optane by default that I changed to AHCI (also my recovery usb drive). I suspect that RESET (on HDD recovery partition) is RST-Optane compatible and corrupted the AHCI settings. I tried the default BIOS and sure enough it went to RST-Optane but still get the No bootable device message when trying to boot.
We live far away from an Acer shop or any PC repair shop, thinking of disconnecting the RTC battery and checking cable connections (HDD-Battery)? Any ideas what to do with a "brick"?
Frank

I suggest you perform clean install.

FrankW said:

Cannot do, nothing works only F2, F12 (legacy) shows blank, it's a brick

You will need to start your own thread i can't help you here.

For anyone still struggling with this issue, I solved it by changing the SATA (or SATA/IDE) Control Mode in the BIOS settings. I think maybe the CMOS battery drained and the BIOS went to default settings? Either way, I changed it back to what I always used, which is AHCI mode. Compatibility mode is what caused to to throw a blue screen (BSOD) of "Inaccessible Boot Device" and now it boots fine.

TL;DR: Changed host controller in BIOS from Compatibility to AHCI and now it boots