Windows 8.1 INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error preventing startup

Question

Background

My Fujitsu Lifebook laptop (running Windows 8.1) has gradually been getting slower over the last few months, so I recently took steps to speed it up. These included:

1. Making use of the Microsoft Sysinternals program 'Autoruns' (https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/sysinternals/bb963902.aspx) to disable a number of startup programs.

2. Using the Uniblue program 'SpeedUpMyPC' (http://www.uniblue.com/product/pc/speedupmypc/).

3. Stopping various services in the Windows Task Manager.

I may be mistaken, but I believe that I was able to successfully restart my computer and login after taking the above steps.

The Problem

However, recently I started my computer up again (after an update) and instead of the login screen, I was presented with the 'Blue Screen of Death'. Specifically, the error was 'INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE'. On the next startup I was greeted with the Windows Recovery Environment.

Approaches so far

I have tried a number of the options presented in this environment e.g.:

1. 'Refresh my PC'
2. Boot to Safe Mode
3. Use Low Resolution Video
4. Enable Debugging

None of these options were successful - there was no change in behaviour.

One of the few options I have not carried out are:

1. Reset my PC (I do not wish to wipe my data).
2. Restore from a System Image (I do not have any backed up system images to restore from).

Having exhausted the choices presented here, I carried out quite a thorough search on the web and have tried various other solutions, making use of the Recovery Environment's Command Prompt.

The only action which seems to have resulted in any change of behaviour is navigating to my main drive's automatic backups of the registry, and replacing my current registry files with these. I did this by running the following commands:

cd /d C:\
cd windows/system32/config
cd RegBackup
copy * ..\*

After having done this, I no longer see the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error, but instead I see a black screen with no cursor. I have left the machine in this state for a long time with no discernable progress. Occasionally for a split second it looked like a window has appeared before disappearing.

I am able to return to the previous behaviour of seeing the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error by reversing the backup (i.e. placing the old registry files back where they were).

I am also able to view the registry of the drive in question by running regedit in the command prompt of the Recovery Command Prompt, and loading the 'hive' from that drive.

I suspect that there are certain settings that need to be changed in the registry that will allow me to deal with this error. Perhaps to do with re-enabling drivers that access my hard drive during login. However, I am not sure how to proceed.

Answer 1

To answer your question it could be quite a few things. Make sure you have a good power supply and the highest ddr ram your mother bord can use. One of the easiest things to. Do and you should do every so often is clean your registry. You can also find alot of help in the command prompt.