inaccessible boot device error message

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Guest

Guest
I just recently put together a pentium III with intel 1.13ghz on a ASUS Tualatin motherboard. When everything is connected, boot up to W2k pro but the next message states that is a blue screen that said inaccesible boot device. All the components worked on the previous motherboard, (the only thing new is the ASUS motherboard itself). The hard drive is setup as master primary.
Any body seen this message before?

Thanks
 
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Guest

Guest
Check the motherboard bios and make sure your hard drives are being recognized correctly. Make sure any IDE or peripheral settings in the bios are compatible with your components. Recheck your connections.

Good luck
 

kief

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Aug 27, 2001
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Yepper!! The boot device is the hard disk controller. Its cuz the hard disk controller is different. When 2k/XP boots up it loads the driver for the controller that the boot drive is on. When it tried to do this it fails (cuz that controller is no longer present) and you get the error "inaccesible boot device".

Jesus saves, but Mario scores!!!
 
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Guest

Guest
hey kief. Thanks for the info. What should I do at this point short of wiping out my primary hard drive? I have important files that must be retained. Any suggestions is welcomed.

pc_sandman
 
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Sorry, I missread that you had gotten to Win2K. The problem might not in the MB bios. The only thing I might verify in the Bios is a setting which allows Plug and Play to be active. Win2K is plug and play, and it should detect new or different hardware. Since the hard drive controller is part of the motherboard, going to the new board will be going to a new controller. Win2k should redetect it, although why it isn't, I'm not sure.

If it is the controller and Win2k can't automatically adjust, you'll have to change it manually. Try this first, although it may not be possible. Start Win2K in safe mode to remove and reinstall (redetect) the hard drive controller. If it doesn't work, see if you can start from the CD, and fix it through there.

If you can't get it restored, (and I'm not sure I'm suggesting everything), one really complicated solution might be to hook up things to your old motherboard, get in to Win2K, go into the device manager and remove the hard drive controller. Shut down the machine, attach your new motherboard and hopefully it will detect the new controller correctly.

On a side note, I did see this error crop up in Win2k on my own system, and it was caused by a malfunctioning SCSI hard drive controller. Are there any other storage devices on your system that might have skewed drivers (hard drives, CD-ROM/RW drives, Zip/Jaz drives, etc). It wouldn't hurt disconnecting those just to see if the problem goes away... If it does, you'll have to reinstall the appropriate drivers for that device.
 

sjonnie

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What was your previous MOBO? Does your upgrade now mean that your HD now boots in UDMA mode 5? If it does set it manually to UDMA mode 4 and W2K may boot normally, then check out this <A HREF="http://support.microsoft.com/support/kb/articles/Q260/2/33.ASP?LN=EN-US&SD=gn&FR=1" target="_new">update</A> to allow W2K to use UDMA 5.
If this is complete bullshit and you have changed chipsets i.e. Intel to VIA or so then prolly you will need to load a new IDE driver.
 

kief

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Sorry I didnt get back sooner, I was away =) You can try to load in safe mode and remove the current driver and then install the new one. When I change chipsets I reinstall windows as that is the safe thing to do. Even if you get it to boot into windows it has lots of old info and junk in there =(

Jesus saves, but Mario scores!!!