Inaccessible Boot Device

[Baz]

Hi!

I have this imtermittent problem (every couple of days) with my Dell
Inspiron 8100 laptop, running W2K SP3 with NTFS. It bluescreens on startup,
with error 7B, Inaccessible Boot Device. When this happens, repeated
attempts to reboot (maybe a dozen or more) eventually result in a successful
boot, and then everything is OK again for a while.

I have two W2K installs on the 40Gb disk. When it bluescreens, it does so
with both installs. It also does it when trying to start in safe mode.
Booting from the W2K CD and running chkdsk from the Recovery Console results
in the message "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable
problems". However, when the thing eventually boots successfully, chkdsk
then reports no problems. I have both Norton Antivirus and AVG running on
the machine, neither of which reports any virus. Running the disk
diagnostics by using Crtl-Alt-D from the Dell splash screen reports no
problems.

Everything is thoroughly backed up so I'm considering a complete reformat
and reinstall, which will take me DAYS! I also fear that it may not help,
because I'm beginning to suspect an intermittent hardware fault. However, I
must do something, because it is quite likely that one day I will be
completely unable to start the machine.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks,

Baz

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

Hi!

I have this imtermittent problem (every couple of days) with my Dell
Inspiron 8100 laptop, running W2K SP3 with NTFS. It bluescreens on startup,
with error 7B, Inaccessible Boot Device. When this happens, repeated
attempts to reboot (maybe a dozen or more) eventually result in a successful
boot, and then everything is OK again for a while.

I have two W2K installs on the 40Gb disk. When it bluescreens, it does so
with both installs. It also does it when trying to start in safe mode.
Booting from the W2K CD and running chkdsk from the Recovery Console results
in the message "The volume appears to contain one or more unrecoverable
problems". However, when the thing eventually boots successfully, chkdsk
then reports no problems. I have both Norton Antivirus and AVG running on
the machine, neither of which reports any virus. Running the disk
diagnostics by using Crtl-Alt-D from the Dell splash screen reports no
problems.

Everything is thoroughly backed up so I'm considering a complete reformat
and reinstall, which will take me DAYS! I also fear that it may not help,
because I'm beginning to suspect an intermittent hardware fault. However, I
must do something, because it is quite likely that one day I will be
completely unable to start the machine.

Any thoughts/suggestions?

Thanks,

Baz

I would try this:
- Download & run the diagnostic program that your hard disk
manufacturer makes available on his home site.
- Replace the specific driver for the Master IDE Controller with
the generic Microsoft driver (in Device Manager).

 

[Baz]

However,

I would try this:
- Download & run the diagnostic program that your hard disk
manufacturer makes available on his home site.
- Replace the specific driver for the Master IDE Controller with
the generic Microsoft driver (in Device Manager).

Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately, Device Manager does not reveal
who the manufacturer of the disk is. I'm sure there's a label on the unit
itself, but given that this is a laptop (i.e. there seems to be a bit more
to taking it apart than simply slipping the case off), I'm not quite ready
to start pulling it to bits. I have run the disk diagnostics provided by
Dell, which showed no problems.

It's already using the Microsoft driver for the primary IDE controller.

Thanks,

Baz

 

[Pegasus \(MVP\)]

does running
Thanks for your suggestions. Unfortunately, Device Manager does not reveal
who the manufacturer of the disk is. I'm sure there's a label on the unit
itself, but given that this is a laptop (i.e. there seems to be a bit more
to taking it apart than simply slipping the case off), I'm not quite ready
to start pulling it to bits. I have run the disk diagnostics provided by
Dell, which showed no problems.

It's already using the Microsoft driver for the primary IDE controller.

Thanks,

Baz

Removing hard disks is usually quite trivial with laptops:
Undo one or two screws, then pull out the disk.

If you had an intact OS then you could run AIDA32 to
find out what brand of disk you have.

In the absence of this knowledge, download the diagnostic
programs for the major manufacturers (Seagate, Quantum,
Western Digital, Fujitsu) and see if one of them will run.