WIN 10 - boot loop / inaccessible boot device HELP

Trekkerdude · 23 Mar 2021

Hello to all good people here.
My name is Grzegorz and I am seeking help in solving my issue that keeps bugging me for a week or so.

As the thread title says I am suffering from the boot looping during WIN startup and I cannot access WIN by any means. It started by trying to update WIN to the 20H2 version, which was constantly pending. All the quality cumulative updates were installing fine, but I was stuck at 1909 and every attempt to update to 20H2 was ending up with a boot loop and the 'inaccessible boot device message'. After few trials the system was always able to roll back to the point from before any update. But again I was doomed for 1909. Today I tried to update drivers in Device Manager one by one and was prompted to reboot. Then I surged into a boot loop from which my PC is unable to recover. Tried everything I found here and there, but nothing seems to be working.
I would really, reallllly appreciate if someone is able to point me in a right direction and offer some help. That'd be greatly appreciated. I'm sure there were hundreds request like that, yet I am desperate for help.

thanks
Grzegorz

AndreTen · 23 Mar 2021

Something similar happened to me after latest Insider upgrade. Not the same thing, but could be...

Do you have NVMe SSD? Then you can try like I did.

Solved it by using Macrium Free to rebuild boot menu (and boot files). You could do the same with Windows bcdedit commands, but I like Macrium approach

For using command prompt chek out this thread:

moving-recreating-efi-partition

Trekkerdude · 23 Mar 2021

Thanks for your reply. Can you tell me a bit more about Macrium?

EdTittel · 23 Mar 2021

Check out Kari the Finn's "Backup and Restore with Macrium Reflect" tutorial here at TenForums. It should tell you most, if not all, of what you need to know.
HTH,
--Ed--

Trekkerdude · 23 Mar 2021

Thanks Ed, I will go through it.

AndreTen · 23 Mar 2021

Trekkerdude said:

Thanks for your reply. Can you tell me a bit more about Macrium?

One of the first programs I always install on my systems. Backup for system imaging (you can browse your backups like any other partition)

After install, make system image of all your partitions (or at least requested for booting) and make bootable USB.

If you can boot to Windows, you can add Macrium to boot menu (like dual boot), but if you boot with USB drive, there is an option to fix boot problems - select this and it will (most probably) repair your booting problems .
macrium.com/reflectfree
You can do boot repair with commands, but we (most of us here) have Macrium free installed anyhow, so I use Macrium

WIN 10 - boot loop / inaccessible boot device HELP-image.png

Trekkerdude · 23 Mar 2021

Hi,

I did create a a Removable USB Flash Drive with Macrium and used it to boot my PC. I arrived at the screen where I was able to choose 'Fix Windows boot problems' under Restore tasks. It found installed Windows operating systems, so I proceeded.
It said: EFI partition found on disk 4, Removing old BCD, Creating BCD for C:\Windows. When asked if I want to restart I said Yes. It started rebooting but after some time with a spinning wheel it went into a classic BSOD with Inaccessible Boot Device :-(
Any idea?

AndreTen · 23 Mar 2021

OK, few more questions.

Do you have NVMe SSD? Which type

Which drivers were the last you've updated when the problems start?

What the settings for storage in your BIOS? AHCI, RAID?

Trekkerdude · 24 Mar 2021

Hi again,

Yes, I have NVMe SSD as my system drive and it is MP600 500GB drive.
Unfortunately I can't remember which were the drivers I updated as I was going from top to bottom checking where update was needed. As far as I remember no SSD/HDD was in need for a new driver. In BIOS everything was kept at AHCI.

In the meantime, using Macrium, I created an image of my C drive, I restored it using Macrium PE, but it did not help either.

thanks
Grzegorz

AndreTen · 24 Mar 2021

reading about similar problems, there is just too many possibilities.
One that seems possible is that you anti virus software interacted when drivers were installed and end up with this mess.

Can you boot up with Windows install media and select repair? If you could boot into Windows it could be aesier...

Also check if you have secure boot enabled. Disable it and try Macrium fix boot again

------
Edit: one thing comes to mind.

If nothing helps, you could remove all your other SSDs, and put your system SSD in combo M.2 slot (that can be set to SATA), se it to SATA mode and try to boot with it.
If you manage to boot in Windows, delete (uninstall) any NVMe driver, then restore PCIe mode to that slot and boot in safe mode. Windows should reinstall MS drivers for NVMe

Assuming that drivers are the cause you are not able to boot into Windows