Inaccessible Boot Device error

[bookwormzsh]

Earlier today, I received the Inaccessible Boot Device error on my Alienware R15 laptop. Despite changing UEFI to legacy and attempting to load from a usb recovery drive, I couldn't fix anything. The laptop won't boot into any version of safe mode either. From what I have researched and tested, it isn't a hardware failure or bios configuration error, but Windows 10 is somehow not recognizing itself. I attempted to repair the boot record in the recovery environment, but when checking for Windows installations, it returned 0 installations recognized. I tried to follow the process where you essentially rename the bcd file and create a new one from scratch, yet for whatever reason, the bcd file is not located in the boot directory. I would prefer to not have to do a clean install or "upgrade" on top of the current installation, but are those my only options?

 

[Colif]

did you try these 4 commands in CMD?

bootrec /RebuildBcd
bootrec /fixMbr
bootrec /fixboot
Exit

is there anything on C drive you want to rescue? try making this on another PC: http://www.howtogeek.com/howto/windows-vista/use-ubuntu-live-cd-to-backup-files-from-your-dead-windows-computer/

 

[bookwormzsh]

Yes, I used that series of commands among others and still wasn't able to fix the issue. I actually used notepad.exe from the command line to move files over to a couple of my usb drives in preparation for a factory reset when I found a system image that had been created a couple of months ago. Since somehow the 3 restore points I had weren't usable, I didn't even think about being able to reset to an image to fix it, but nonetheless, it worked and booted just fine after the computer was reset to that point. I didn't have to clean install Windows or upgrade on top of it. So, I suppose that teaches me the importance of system images. Issue resolved then.