INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE PROCEDURES PART 1

After you change motherboards, or move the Windows system (boot) disk to another computer with a different motherboard, you may receive the following blue screen stop message when you try to boot-up:

***STOP: 0x0000007B (0xF741B84C,0xC0000034,0x00000000,0x00000000)

INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

This event is standard with Win2000, and uncommon with Win98 and Me.  The cause is that the registry entries and drivers for the mass storage controller hardware on the new motherboard are not installed in Windows.  Accordingly, Windows setup can't find the drive controller and/or the driver for it.  Other causes might be:  

  1. The boot device setting in CMOS setup may be incorrect, or 
  2. poor drive or drive controller cable connections.
    Win2K can cope with most hardware changes (by running the Found New Hardware wizard) but only if it can boot as far as the GUI desktop in the first place.  And one of the few device changes that might prevent that is a change to the hard disk controller.

For IDE controllers, there are several different chipsets available. Each chipset uses a different Plug-n-Play (PNP) ID to identify it.  The PNP-ID information of mass storage controllers for the new motherboard must be in the registry prior to startup for Windows to initialize the correct drivers.  To fix, you must install the UDMA 66/100 or SCSI controller drivers in Win2000 before the hard drive will be recognized as the primary boot device; (To install drivers: <F6> during Setup).

In addition to the OS-specific motherboard-change procedures described later in this document, users report that the following solutions also correct this IBD problem.

 

IBD Solution 1:  Microsoft Knowledge Base Recommendation:

http://support.microsoft.com/default.aspx?scid=kb;EN-US;Q271965

 

IBD Solution 2:  Load generic Microsoft drivers (all compatible):

On occasion, the user may wish to exchange the mainboard of a computer system running Windows 2000.  Unless the replacement is identical to the original, a STOP (Blue Screen) error INACESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE will be observed when attempting to boot the existing disk image on the new board.  This is caused by the presence of a mass storage controller on the new board that is incompatible with that on the previous motherboard.  In most cases, this scenario will require a re-installation of Windows 2000; however, there are instances where this is not necessary, if the following conditions are met:

  1. The Mass Storage Controller on both the old and new boards are standard onboard ATA/IDE PCI devices, as commonly found on many desktop system boards.

  2. Neither controller uses RAID functionality.

  3. It is still possible to boot Windows 2000 on the previous motherboard.

If these conditions are met, then the user may wish to try the following procedure:

1)      Boot the PC system using the existing (previous) motherboard. **If you've installed the UltraATA Driver (if so, Device Manager->IDE Controllers->Primary Channel will be lacking its usual "Advanced Settings" tab) then uninstall said driver from Control Panel and reboot before continuing **

2)      From the Device Manager, open up the "IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers" section. On a typical system there will be three entries under this - the controller itself, and then the primary/secondary IDE channels.

3)       Double-click on the entry for the controller, and change the driver to the generic default Microsoft "Standard Dual-Channel PCI IDE Controller". This is to IDE controllers what the Standard VGA driver is to video cards - i.e., it'll work on just about anything, but is rather slow and basic.

Note:  If you're going to change graphics adapters as part of the motherboard change, be sure to change your graphics adapter driver to Standard VGA before you shut down the old motherboard for the last time. Otherwise, the computer will try to use the wrong (old) driver for the new video card when you start up.

4)       Now shut down the system, and replace the motherboard as required.

5)      If the new IDE controller is compatible with the "Standard Dual-Channel PCI IDE Controller" driver, then the system should boot into Windows 2000.  (The "generic" driver is compatible with most IDE controllers out there - albeit at lower performance.)

6)       At this point you should install the correct optimized IDE/ATAPI drivers for the controller. (i.e. VIA 4in1 drivers).

 

IBD Solution 3:  Load mass storage drivers for new motherboard during setup:

Q216406 Specifying Third-Party Disk Controller Driver During Setup 

http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/q216/4/06.asp

Specifying a third-party controller driver during Setup should be necessary only if Windows 2000 does not contain a driver for your SCSI adapter, CD-ROM drive, or special disk controller, or if Setup does not detect your hardware correctly.  To select a third-party controller during Setup:

1)      Obtain the correct driver file from the motherboard or controller card maker.  Copy file to a floppy disk.

2)      Change motherboards.

3)      Place Windows2000 Setup CD in the CDROM-Drive, reboot, and boot from the CDROM.

4)      Early during the first phase of Setup, at the "Setup is inspecting your computer's hardware configuration" screen, press the F6 key ASAP; (F6 quickly to prevent drive controller detection).  Then press “S” to specify an additional device.

Alternate: During the first phase of Setup, press F8 to troubleshoot, and choose boot up in Safe Mode.  Press F6, then press “S” to specify an additional device.

Note:You do not need to install the ATA-100 driver during the WIN2K install process on a non-RAID IDE motherboard; WIN2K will simply treat it as an ATA-66 drive. Once Setup is complete,  install SP2, and WIN2K will see the drive as ATA-100.  If the drive is on a SCSI or RAID controller, you must use the 3rd party mass-storage device <F6> option, or WIN2K doesn't see the drive.

5)      Win2000 setup will now ask for a TXTSETUP.OEM disk.  Place the TXTSETUP.OEM disk in the floppy drive, and press Enter to continue.

6)       Windows installs the correct driver.

7)       To continue with Setup, press Enter.

 

IBD Solution 4:  Delete Drivers using Recovery Console:

1)      Open the Recovery Console and type LISTSVC.  A list of drivers loaded on startup will be displayed.

2)      Locate the IDE drivers and type DISABLE name.ext (where name.ext is the driver name and extension). 

3)      Once the IDE drivers are disabled, exit and reboot.  On reboot, Win2k will load the standard default IDE driver and should startup.

 

IBD Solution 5:  Boot using UDMA33, then load correct UDMA66/100 IDE drivers for new motherboard:

1)      Obtain the correct driver file from the motherboard or controller card maker.  Copy file to a floppy disk.

2)      Attach hard drive to IDE 1 or 2 with a 40 pin cable. ID this HD in bios.

3)      Boot up the system using UDMA33.

4)      Go to device manager and highlight MASS STORAGE CONTROLLER.  Go to properties, change driver; put the UDMA66-100 driver disk in the floppy drive. Update the driver on one of these MASS STORAGE CONTROLLER lines.  When asked to reboot, do NOT reboot right now.

5)      Highlight the other line of MASS STORAGE CONTROLLER, perform the same operation as the first line. When asked to reboot, YES.

6)      When the system starts POST, turn off the power.

7)      Attach HD to the UDMA66-100 port using 80 pin cable. Be sure the ends are attached per instructions in manual. Remove the 40 pin cable from the system (unless there is a CD-Rom, burner, extra HD etc. intended to connect using a 40 pin cable).

8)      Power up the system.  Go into bios and remove the HD previously detected. Just say "none" if you do not have anything attached to this port.

9)      Save and exit.

 

IBD Solution 6:  (To Salvage Data) Install unbootable drive as slave:

This does not solve the IBD error, but does allow data recovery from an unbootable drive: 

If the old PC is trashed and cannot run, then provided that the disk has not been encrypted, you can install it in the new system as a slave.  Install another hard disk as Master, then install Windows afresh on the new disk.  Once installed, you should be able to access the old disk and copy data to the new drive.

    

Inaccessible Boot Device Procedure - Change Motherboard and save operating system Part 2