Inaccessible Boot Device Error

[Guest]

Getting this Inaccessible Boot Device error message on the dreaded blue
screen and tried restarting, tried going back to the last good configuration
set up - wasn't even able to do that. He installed a new cdrom drive, but
left the old one in there, making three. (i think) PC seemed to read the new
drive and the old one, so went on to put the cd in and start with the new
program.

Kept saying need to restart to make this setting work, etc., etc,. about
seven times. Then finally the blue screen with the error came up and now he
can't do anything. Any help before spending a ton of money for a computer
dude to fix it would be awesome! Thanks.

 

[John John]

Sounds to me like he ended up slaving the boot drive.

John

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

"Inaccessible Boot Device Error!" <Inaccessible Boot Device Error!
@discussions.microsoft.com> wrote in message

Getting this Inaccessible Boot Device error message on the dreaded blue
screen and tried restarting, tried going back to the last good configuration
set up - wasn't even able to do that. He installed a new cdrom drive, but
left the old one in there, making three. (i think) PC seemed to read the new
drive and the old one, so went on to put the cd in and start with the new
program.

Kept saying need to restart to make this setting work, etc., etc,. about
seven times. Then finally the blue screen with the error came up and now he
can't do anything. Any help before spending a ton of money for a computer
dude to fix it would be awesome! Thanks.

- What exactly is the recent history of the PC?
- Did you try restoring the PC to the state it was in before you installed
the new CD drive?

 

[Guest]

Hmm, 3 Cd-Roms! I must assume that two are connected to you secondary IDE
port on the main board. Was the third one connected to the same IDE port as
you boot hard drive. This may be the problem, well at least I'm not a big fan
on CD's and HD's on the IDE port. You may want to start by removing the CD
connected with the same ribbon cable as your HD. If this resolves your
problem then you can play with reattaching it. I would make the HD the master
and the CD a slave. If all else fails try the CS(cable select) pin
configuration on the drives.

The absolute best solution would be to pick up a PCI IDE card and attach
your third CD-ROM to it. This would actually boost the perfromance of your
system drive. The reason being is that it no longer has to compete with
another drive on the same bus.

Hope this helps,

Andy Timmins