Inaccessible Boot Device Error

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Guest

Just started my system this morning - got an "inaccesible boot device" error
while windows is starting up. Tried booting into safe mode and using the last
used configuration but neither allowed windows to start up (progress bar
almost reaches the end, then I get the Stop Error). Tried booting from the CD
and then chose to repair the installation of Windows but received the message
that no hard drives were found, so the repair could not continue.

Although I'm a huge computer user, I'm not familiar with how I can get
around this - without getting into Windows I don't know how to resolve
anything! Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated!

(P.S. No new hardware has been added to the system - no configuration has
been changed. Literally shut down my computer last night and everything was
fine).

Thanks in advance for any help!


Julia
 
You didn't mention the drive controller (possibly SCSI, or ultra DMA, or
ATA100, or raid, or serial ATA), but to start the recovery console you may
need to boot the Windows 2000 setup disks or CD-Rom and *F6* very early and
very important (at setup is inspecting your system) in the setup to prevent
drive controller detection, and select S to specify additional drivers. Then
later you'll be prompted to insert the manufacturer supplied Windows 2000
driver for your drive's controller in drive "A"


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Just started my system this morning - got an "inaccesible boot device"
error
| while windows is starting up. Tried booting into safe mode and using the
last
| used configuration but neither allowed windows to start up (progress bar
| almost reaches the end, then I get the Stop Error). Tried booting from the
CD
| and then chose to repair the installation of Windows but received the
message
| that no hard drives were found, so the repair could not continue.
|
| Although I'm a huge computer user, I'm not familiar with how I can get
| around this - without getting into Windows I don't know how to resolve
| anything! Any suggestions or advice is greatly appreciated!
|
| (P.S. No new hardware has been added to the system - no configuration has
| been changed. Literally shut down my computer last night and everything
was
| fine).
|
| Thanks in advance for any help!
|
|
| Julia
 
Thanks Dave - I followed your instructions below with success....almost. Was
able to F6 and used our Adaptec Drive Controller disks to get past the error
I was experiencing before. Once I chose to "Repair" the Win 2000 installation
I got the following message:

Setup has determined that your computer's startup hard disk is new or has
been erased, or that your computer is running an operating system that is
incompatible with Windows 2000. If you choose to discard the contents of the
hard disk press C to continue. If you are running an operating system that is
incompatible with Windows 2000 continuing setup may damage or destroy the
existing operating system.

Any data will be lost if you contine.

(gulp!) That's quite a message -- any suggestion as to what could cause the
above message before we start taking the computer apart?

Thanks!


Julia
 
Can you find any data left on the drive?
http://www.sysinternals.com/ntw2k/freeware/ntfsdos.shtml

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
| Thanks Dave - I followed your instructions below with success....almost.
Was
| able to F6 and used our Adaptec Drive Controller disks to get past the
error
| I was experiencing before. Once I chose to "Repair" the Win 2000
installation
| I got the following message:
|
| Setup has determined that your computer's startup hard disk is new or has
| been erased, or that your computer is running an operating system that is
| incompatible with Windows 2000. If you choose to discard the contents of
the
| hard disk press C to continue. If you are running an operating system that
is
| incompatible with Windows 2000 continuing setup may damage or destroy the
| existing operating system.
|
| Any data will be lost if you contine.
|
| (gulp!) That's quite a message -- any suggestion as to what could cause
the
| above message before we start taking the computer apart?
|
| Thanks!
|
|
| Julia
 
I have booted a DOS NTFS reader program. This program can access the
partitions
both C: and F: directory structures. However, Win2000 with the adaptec
driver
loaded cannot see the Volumes...

Any assistance is greatly appreciated!

Julia
 
Try creating a boot disk. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000
the disk must contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows
2000 machine, not a DOS/Win9x, so the NT boot sector gets written to the
floppy), and copy Windows 2000 versions of ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini
to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a correct ARC path for the machine you
wish to boot. Below is an example of boot.ini. The default is to start the
operating system located on the first partition of the primary or first
drive (drive0). Then drive0 partition 2 and so on.

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000"
multi(0)disk(0)rdisk(1)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000"

Another possibility is to try loading the controller driver also from
floppy. For the floppy to successfully boot Windows 2000 the disk must
contain the "NT" boot sector. Format a diskette (on a Windows 2000 machine,
not a DOS/Win9x, so the "NT" boot sector gets written to the floppy), then
copy ntldr, ntdetect.com, and boot.ini to it. Edit the boot.ini to give it a
correct ARC path for the machine you wish to boot.

In order for this to work you'll want to change the arc path in boot.ini
from multi syntax to scsi syntax to indicate that Windows 2000 will load a
boot device driver and use that driver to access the boot partition. Then
also copy the correct manufacturer scsi driver to the floppy but renamed to
ntbootdd.sys
(note: if your controller is IDE then use atapi.sys extracted from SP6A
renamed as ntbootdd.sys)

Something like this below;

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\windows
[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"


--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect

:
|I have booted a DOS NTFS reader program. This program can access the
| partitions
| both C: and F: directory structures. However, Win2000 with the adaptec
| driver
| loaded cannot see the Volumes...
|
| Any assistance is greatly appreciated!
|
| Julia
 
Second boot.ini should have been;

[boot loader]
timeout=10
default=scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT
[operating systems]
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,1"
scsi(0)disk(0)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 0,2"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(1)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,1"
scsi(0)disk(1)rdisk(0)partition(2)\WINNT="Windows 2000 1,2"

--
Regards,

Dave Patrick ....Please no email replies - reply in newsgroup.
Microsoft Certified Professional
Microsoft MVP [Windows]
http://www.microsoft.com/protect
 
I had the same problem the last night.
I was trying several things, some of them included in this forum.
I solved it booting with the Windows 2000 CD, and when I get the option to
put de "R" to enter the recovery console, I got the same error than Julia
("Setup has determined that you computer's startup har disk....etc etc").
Then I booted up again and against press "R" I pressed "F10", and enter
succesfully, just log into as administrator with the password.

Then I run chkdsk /p /r command, and after it, FIXBOOT.

Then I restarted the server and everything was fine.

I hope this help someone else.
 
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