Cannot boot into Windows.

[patman9]

Home built Computer:
CPU: AMD FX 8320
CPU Cooler: Corsair H100
GPU: MSI 7950
MOBO: Asus Sabertooth 990fx
RAM: 4x4gb Corsair Vengeance
PSU: Corsair 850 Watt
OS: Windows 7 Ultimate on 120 GB Samsung SSD
Additonal Drives:
Seagate 750 GB
Seagate 1000 GB
Seagate 3000 GB

Symptoms leading up to the problem:
Being a very busy person I bounce around a lot and leave my computer idling so I can access it for VMs and Plex and such. Randomly while idling the computer would go offline of teamviewer and my roommates confirmed it was BSOD with a 0x000000A code. Which I haven't been able to find a fix for anyways. (haven't had the time to really do it anyways since it could sometimes take 3 days of being on to crash). Then within the past week a randomly one of my drives would disappear. Restarting always seemed to fix this issue. Than tonight it finally happened. One of my drives was missing. I restarted my computer and it wouldn't boot.

The problem:
When I try to start my computer with all drives attached I get the message: "0xc000000e Required device is inaccessible." When I try to start my computer with only my SSD plugged in (tried two different sata ports and cords) I get the message: "Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media and select boot device and press any key"

What I can tell you:
When I go to bios with all my drives plugged in I see:
120 GB SSD
4.1 GB HDD
750.1 GB HDD
3000 GB HDD
AHCI is enabled and so is SMART.

When I try to re install windows it finds the following drives:
Disk Total Free ?(Idr sorry)
Disk 0 Unallocated space 128 gb 128 gb
Disk 1 Partition 1 111.8 gb 6.8 gb Primary
Disk 2 Partition 1 100mb 68 mb System
Disk 2 Partition 2 698.5 gb 661.5 gb Primary
Disk 3 Partition 1 128 mb 128 mb MSR(Reserved)
Disk 3 Partition 2 2794 gb 1557 gb Primary

Things I find weird about that:
Disk 0 (Where does 128 gb randomly come from?)
Disk 1 is missing a system partition
Disk 3 Partition 1 is MSR and not system? What does that mean?
And where is disk 4? I understand that drive has probably failed since even the mobo is getting a weird reading from it but Windows isn't showing it all.

What I've done:
I've tried repairing windows but it can't find any operating system. This might have to do with the fact I was booting from a usb 3.0 port but when I plug it into a usb 2.0 port it goes right into installing windows with no chance to repair.
Side note: When I try to repair it gives me the option to find the drivers since it can't find the operating system and when I click locate I can see my C: Drive and all the files on it. (Which is a HUGE relief)

What I feel my options are:
New motherboard ( perhaps something has failed with the sata connectors?)
Install windows onto the 750 gb drive since there isn't much important stuff on their anyways.
I should have a fairly recent back up of my 1TB drive so that's not the end of the world if that is gone. I just want to know what is going on with my ssd and why can't I boot into if I know it's there? Why can't I repair it with Windows 7 Repair utility? Does anyone have any ideas? I'm going to bed now but I'll check back in in the morning. Thank you all.

 

[adamwinn]

I suggest installing windows on the 750GB drive, and then setting your /tmp and swap files to the SSD. This way you get a lot of the performance benefits without the trouble you are seeing now.

My guess for root cause is just untested behavior for booting from USB, where the default driver is being updated or overwritten (maybe by Windows Update?) and causing it to crap out on you. Seems like a Pandora's box to get it working with current hardware - last ditch you can go top to bottom making sure all drivers, bios, controllers, etc. are on latest version, but no guarantee it'll fix anything long term.

 

[patman9]

I suggest installing windows on the 750GB drive, and then setting your /tmp and swap files to the SSD. This way you get a lot of the performance benefits without the trouble you are seeing now.

My guess for root cause is just untested behavior for booting from USB, where the default driver is being updated or overwritten (maybe by Windows Update?) and causing it to crap out on you. Seems like a Pandora's box to get it working with current hardware - last ditch you can go top to bottom making sure all drivers, bios, controllers, etc. are on latest version, but no guarantee it'll fix anything long term.

"then setting your /tmp and swap files to the SSD" Can you explain what you mean by that?

 

[adamwinn]

Ah I just looked at your RAM, you have 16GB? No need to bother with putting swap (page) file on the SSD. It's probably never even touched. Just install your applications on the SSD and all their temp files should go there. Some of them might go back to c:\temp\ or a similar directory, but that would ideally be relocated to the SSD if you observe that.

 

[patman9]

Ah I just looked at your RAM, you have 16GB? No need to bother with putting swap (page) file on the SSD. It's probably never even touched. Just install your applications on the SSD and all their temp files should go there. Some of them might go back to c:\temp\ or a similar directory, but that would ideally be relocated to the SSD if you observe that.

So I installed windows 7 on the 750 gb hdd and got into everything. Backed up what files I could and then restarted. Upon restart I got the "The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible." again. So I grab my windows 7 USB and try to boot to it and I can't even do that. The motherboard sees it, but there is no option to boot to it. At all. Anywhere. Is there anything I'm overlooking because it looks to me like my motherboard is/has failing/failed. And trying to take my hard drives down with it.

Also side note it looks like my 1TB drive has failed. Gives me to horrible sounding beeps on startup.I've tried all different sata cables and ports. Thankfully I have a back up I can restore from it looks like I just need a working system.

 

[adamwinn]

Oh man, this sounds horribly frustrating. Out of curiosity, if you pop that USB in another machine, it boots fine?

The only constants left here are: Your Windows installer, or your motherboard. If you can confirm that the install will work on another machine, then it's definitely something wrong with your board or one of its controllers 🙁

 

[patman9]

Oh man, this sounds horribly frustrating. Out of curiosity, if you pop that USB in another machine, it boots fine?

The only constants left here are: Your Windows installer, or your motherboard. If you can confirm that the install will work on another machine, then it's definitely something wrong with your board or one of its controllers 🙁

Well the usb part was my own fault for not using the usb 2.0 port. I have like 10 usb ports on the back and it was kind of dark. So I got windows 7 installed on my SSD and restored all my data. I'm going to buy another 1TB hard drive today, restore the rest of my back up and hope it holds up. There's no way I'm plugging my 3tb into my motherboard until I'm 100% sure my mobo didn't kill everything so I'll probably end up buying a NAS as well. Thanks for all the help.

 

[adamwinn]

Good luck!