Inaccessible-boot-device after January 2018 Updates - Partially Solved

Inaccessible Boot Drive after Update? Solved - Page 4 - Windows 10 Forums

Mine Started there in that forum - and I was not Original OP so I agree - should have created a new thread as I was working through it..

Systems I encountered error on
Dell T5500 precision workstation
dual Xeon CPU ~2010 original purchase
these have been upgraded only with better video AMD W5000 (not much better though)
as well as SSD 250g SATA (Samsung EVO 840 (i think red one might be 830) in primary boot and 140g 10k SATA WD Raptor on Secondary... really not needed but figured just to show what is in them.

AV - vipre endpoint security - verified compatible with MS updates and correct reg flag was in place before any of these issue.
only thing I did notice was the agent version was on 10.0.6290 and now all other working systems are on 10.0.7233
Coincidence?? hummmm


system only reboots on Wednesdays/Thursdays unless acting up then manually reboot - but generally rarely needs a reboot. (this is my workstation for the office so its always on and locked and ready for me to do anything remotely.

last week noticed it wasn't coming back online in am hours like it should have been...
all after release of intel patches from MS... and being windows 10... wonderful - can't exactly stop the updates.

so it had to be an update from 10th > 18th I figured - as those would have been the ranges it would have rebooted on...
(so it might be a Thursday - don't really care - wed / thurs reboots - don't care to check the schedule /script as it is barely related.)

initially read through this older article from October and didn't see any pending updates... so they were all installed...
How to fix October 10 update causing 'Inaccessible Boot Device' error in Windows 10 | Windows Central

first attempts no change - as well as rebuilding bcd - no real change
then just did a restore to ~Jan 10th and restore worked and was back up and running - thought i was good as I also stopped future updates.... - nope... no good after reboot for some other updates apparently or power loss - but system is on ups so not sure why it rebooted over the weekend... something else!

However after trying some of the bootrec /fixboot commands and failing to get the system operational again - this morning..

booting to window 10 install disk and using repair got back into advanced troubleshooting and CMD prompt.

then started using the dism to remove updates manually as I am 80% sure the drives are not failing
this is also evident from a second ~identical system also having the same issue - restore to previous update also worked but will have to see if i need to remove the same updates on that one as well soon - that on is my plex server so can't be having that one offline!

trick for me was knowing which drive had windows installed on it during windows pe ... c: was not the correct drive
but didn't try c: - instead command was

dism /image:f:\ /get-packages
dism / image:f:\ /remove-package /packagename:IDENTITY NAME /scratchdir:f:\temp\packages

slightly modified from original which was using C: - but working now at least temporarily...

anyway the fix for me was removing 3 updates..

first one -

KB4056887~.........10.0.1.0
1/15/18 1pm



rebooted - no change... not fixed.

next removed two more

KB4058702......16299.188.1.0
1/11/2018 1:03pm

and

package_for_rollupfix....16.299.192.1.9
1/11/2018 4:51pm

then rebooted...
initially showed error (like repair needed / not sure hit ok) but then booted correctly into windows after that and now working again...

Still not 100% sure - as updates are/were paused, and now i am unable to pause them again.



so it might become unbootable shortly again anyway if the updates get re-installed... oh well...

I have had the Inaccessible boot device error twice now on the same machine. The first time I re-installed W10 on a different HDD, the second time I used the same HDD to get it up and running again.

This problem certainly seems tied to a recent update - I hope Microsoft is working on fixing this....so annoying to have a random problem like this.

Here's what I have found.
You can get at least one single normal boot by following the viperiii's procedure. My system only booted once. during that boot,
the last half of the update that caused the problem, continued to install, but the system booted. But only once.
I suggest that you use the DISM with the revert pending updates before you remove the installed packages.
Here's the steps:

Boot from a USB or DVD recovery disk from the same version of windows 10
select repair my PC
in troubleshooting select command prompt.
once in command prompt: (where X is the drive letter where windows is installed. (check because it might be d: or e: even though after windows boots, it will become c:)
dism.exe /image:X:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions
(this step is necessary because if you do not and are getting the error Inaccessible boot device, once you get it to boot, the remainder of the patch that caused the problem will replace 40 or so drivers in the \windows\system32\drivers folder. And you will not be able to boot again.)
now execute the following command (replacing X with the drive where windows is installed)
dism /image:X:\ /get-packages
make note of the most recent updated package.
using DISM remove the most update.
type the following: (replacing X with the drive where windows is installed)
md X:\temp
md X:\temp\packages
Don't worry if the directory exists.
dism /image:X:\ /remove-package /packagename:PACKAGE TO REMOVE scratchdir:X:\temp\packages

[example: dism /image:e:\ /remove-package /packagenameackage_for_kb4056887~31bf3856ad364e35~amd64~~10.0.1.0 /scratchdir:e:\temp\packages
]

reboot

(you may have to do another startup repair, but the system should boot)
If not you may have to remove more packages.

Once booted, remember you may not be able to boot again.
(at least I wasn't. Trying the procedure again did not produce a bootable machine).

Note: System reset works, but you lose all your programs and configurations)
My next step is to try doing a repair install from within windows.
More to come...