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Last updated: Aug 26, 2021

How to fix the “inaccessible boot device” error?

Here you will find out:

what an “inaccessible boot device” error is

how to fix this error

how DiskInternals Partition Recovery can help you

Are you ready? Let's read!

If you get an “inaccessible boot device” error

Encountering one problem or another is common after upgrading or updating Windows 10 on your PC. This article will tell you how to fix the “inaccessible boot device” error in case you are faced with this error message on Windows 10. As the name indicates, this error message comes up when Windows is unable to read your PC’s boot device.

How to fix this error

Method 1: Delete recently installed packages

Possibly, a Windows update file has installed an incompatible program, and that is the cause of this error. So, first save all your files on the computer and shut it down completely. After that, you can follow the steps below:

If you're unable to access your desktop to open the Settings menu, launch Command Prompt (Admin) from “Advanced Options” while booting.

Click on "Advanced Options" to open the "Windows Recovery" menu.

Go to “Advanced Options” again and select “Troubleshoot,” then click on Command Prompt.

In Command Prompt, type “dir c:” and run it ("C" is your drive letter, but it could be D or another letter).

Type “Dism /Image:c:\ /Get-Packages” and press Enter; this will display all programs on the computer, and you'll be able to see the dates they were installed.

Identify the new program(s) and enter this command: “uninstall dism.exe /image:c:\ /remove-package /[package name]”. NB: [package name] is the name of the new program.

After uninstalling all new packages, reboot the PC.

Method 2: Update your device drivers

Drivers are very important for your computer to run smoothly. Once in a while, you should update your PC drivers. Here is how you can do that.

Press Windows key + R, enter “devmgmt.msc” in the Run terminal and press Enter.

Open the driver “IDE ATA/ATAPI Controllers”.

Right-click on "Standard SATA..." and select "Update Driver".

Windows will automatically look up and install the latest driver version, and your computer should be working fine afterward.

Method 3: Get rid of “update pending” packages

Update pending packages are Windows update files that have yet to be installed on your computer. This could be the cause of the “inaccessible boot device” error on Windows 10. To delete these files, you need to have access to your PC settings, but if you’re unable to access the PC settings because the PC won’t boot, then follow the initial steps in Method 1 to launch Command Prompt via “Advanced Options”.

Once Command Prompt opens, run these commands in order:

After typing the above commands, run the ones below to transfer all “pending updates” files to a temp folder:

Find the program with the “Install Pending” tag, then type:

Followed by:

NOTE: replace all package name identifiers with the actual name of the program.

Restore data from the inaccessible boot device

If all the methods above don’t work, pull out the hard drive on the Windows 10 computer and connect it to another computer. Once you have connected the hard disk and the computer can boot properly, you can back up your files with different software. After that, you can create a disk image file using DiskInternals Partition Recovery. This disk image file serves as a file for everything that's saved on your hard drive.

After you have created an image file, you can now launch the data recovery process using DiskInternals Partition Recovery. Restoring data from an inaccessible drive or device is possible using DiskInternals Partition Recovery.

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