Question BSOD - INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

[creatorbros3]

We were having some server issues, so I was working on fixing that and someone force shutdown one of the desktops here. It may have been in the middle of an update. Not sure why they shut it down. But they did. Trying to boot it back up, it would get to login, then after login would just be a black screen with a mouse. Going through any fix I could find on Google, I tried to get it past that issue. The last one I tried was resetting the BIOS - turning off, unplugging, and removing the CMOS battery. It is a Dell XPS 8700 prebuilt desktop, and seemed to be locked down as far as getting into BIOS went. DEL, and F2 were not working. So I had to reset it the battery way.

Now, it won't get to the login screen. I am afraid I might've messed up something with Dell's settings when I reset the BIOS. It gets to the BSOD with the error of "INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE". I have tried unplugging and re-plugging all the components. There is a small mSATA 32GB SSD that I assume is the boot drive, as well as a 2TB Seagate HDD. There is also a 750 TI GPU, 16GB DDR3 RAM that I reseated. I didn't think those would be the issue though as it was posting and those had not been messed with before the issue arose; Those steps did not end up fixing the problem anyways. It gets to the BSOD then reboots into a repair mode, but none of the methods for repairing work. The built in startup repair, Dells integrated troubleshooting and repair program that comes up, command prompt repairs, etc. nothing works.

Anyways, I am at the end of my skill. We ordered a new SSD to put a fresh install of Windows on if needed, but we really need the data off the old HDD at least. What would be the best way to go from here? Any new suggestions I may be missing?

I have built systems before, but have minimal experience upgrading and duplicating systems. So, what would be the best method for getting all our old programs onto the new drive if that is the way we need to go? (But without duplicating the broken Windows or current issues as well, and without having to go through download after download getting the programs.) It is a business computer and has shipping, point of sale, and lots of other programs (some of which require lengthy remote sessions to reinstall by service agents). We simply don't have time to go through all those steps again right now.

 

[Aeacus]

We ordered a new SSD to put a fresh install of Windows on if needed, but we really need the data off the old HDD at least. What would be the best way to go from here?

Once new SSD arrives, unplug all other drives from PC. Then install SSD and install Win onto it. Make sure you can boot to OS. After which, shut down the machine and plug back the old drives. <- These should remain as regular data drives, which you can access from OS and just copy/paste the data over. Or keep the HDD as 2nd, storage drive. Simple as that.

If you don't unplug the old drives, you can accidentally pick wrong drive during Win installation, which then gets format. Better to physically sever the connection.

So, what would be the best method for getting all our old programs onto the new drive if that is the way we need to go?

If you want bootable OS, given that current OS is sound, you can instead clone the OS from old drive to new drive. But it isn't sound (you can't boot to OS), so, better do it the copy/paste way, described above. But you still need to install programs again, since you can not just copy/paste them over (there is no registry entry when you copy/paste).

If lucky, maybe you have those programs installers still on the old drive. Then you can just copy/paste the installer over and install it in new OS.