Yet another inaccessible boot device problem with Windows XP

[Neil Badley]

This is the third time I've now gotten an "Inaccessible boot device"
error under Windows XP SP 2 with this system after doing absolutely
NOTHING to it. Hardware background:

* Intel D925XECV2 motherboard, 3Ghz CPU, 2GB of RAM
* SATA 0/1 On the motherboard with two drives (the boot volume)
configured as a health RAID 1 array
* Secondary hard drive on a Maxtor EIDE board

Last night the system was working fine. I even rebooted the system a
couple of times yesterday. This morning it was hung at the "Windows XP"
with the scrolling blue dots, so I rebooted and now the system gives a
blue screen with an inaccessible boot device and reboots.

Went into the system's BIOS and verified the boot order has not changed.
If it had, the system would exhibit this behavior.

Booted the system with the Windows XP SP 2 CD. Did a "repair install"
(it does give me the option), and the system blue screens with the
inaccessible boot device in the same place.

In all cases, iaStor.sys (required for my motherboard RAID) is present
on the hard disk and I loaded it via F6 during the XP bootup process.

No amount of removal of drives, controllers, etc... changes any of this.
I'm doing a chkdsk /p now, but I suspect it'll have no effect.

I had this problem once before about a month ago, and a repair install
took care of the problem, but this one is worse.

Any ideas why this problem occurs? The device driver is present and the
RAID 1 array is healthy. I really wish this blue screen would give
something useful (like "Can't locate partition x/y/z" or whatever).

What a way to spend Christmas. ;-( Any help would be greatly appreciated.

-->Neil

 

[Kerry Brown]

This is the third time I've now gotten an "Inaccessible boot device"
error under Windows XP SP 2 with this system after doing absolutely
NOTHING to it. Hardware background:

* Intel D925XECV2 motherboard, 3Ghz CPU, 2GB of RAM
* SATA 0/1 On the motherboard with two drives (the boot volume)
configured as a health RAID 1 array
* Secondary hard drive on a Maxtor EIDE board

Last night the system was working fine. I even rebooted the system a
couple of times yesterday. This morning it was hung at the "Windows
XP" with the scrolling blue dots, so I rebooted and now the system
gives a blue screen with an inaccessible boot device and reboots.

Went into the system's BIOS and verified the boot order has not
changed. If it had, the system would exhibit this behavior.

Booted the system with the Windows XP SP 2 CD. Did a "repair install"
(it does give me the option), and the system blue screens with the
inaccessible boot device in the same place.

In all cases, iaStor.sys (required for my motherboard RAID) is present
on the hard disk and I loaded it via F6 during the XP bootup process.

No amount of removal of drives, controllers, etc... changes any of
this. I'm doing a chkdsk /p now, but I suspect it'll have no effect.

I had this problem once before about a month ago, and a repair install
took care of the problem, but this one is worse.

Any ideas why this problem occurs? The device driver is present and
the RAID 1 array is healthy. I really wish this blue screen would give
something useful (like "Can't locate partition x/y/z" or whatever).

What a way to spend Christmas. ;-( Any help would be greatly
appreciated.
-->Neil

Do you have any USB drives or card readers or printers with card readers
etc. hooked up? You have to disable the boot from USB option on some Intel
boards or intermittently this can occur. Alternatively power down any
external drives, remove any cards in card readers, and disconnect any
cameras with cards in them, etc..

Kerry

 

[Neil Badley]

Do you have any USB drives or card readers or printers with card readers
etc. hooked up? You have to disable the boot from USB option on some Intel
boards or intermittently this can occur. Alternatively power down any
external drives, remove any cards in card readers, and disconnect any
cameras with cards in them, etc..

I had an iPod hooked up but I removed it (same problem). I haven't,
however, disconnected my USB CF/SD reader (built in to my monitor.
That's a good hint - I'll check that. I'll also check the "Boot from
USB" option - good tip, thanks.

Weird... intermittent problem, eh? I'll have to talk to my friends @
Intel about that one. ;-) Thanks for the tip. Cross fingers... and Merry
Christmas!

-->Neil

 

[Neil Bradley]

I had an iPod hooked up but I removed it (same problem). I haven't,
however, disconnected my USB CF/SD reader (built in to my monitor.
That's a good hint - I'll check that. I'll also check the "Boot from
USB" option - good tip, thanks.

Weird... intermittent problem, eh? I'll have to talk to my friends @
Intel about that one. ;-) Thanks for the tip. Cross fingers... and Merry
Christmas!

Okay, the system is back up. I had more than one problem, and I'm not
sure why it worked before:

1) Defective Maxtor/133 ATA interface (causing interrupt problems)

2) Had "USB Boot" turned on

3) Had "Plug and play aware OS" turned off

4) Downloaded the latest RAID driver from Intel for my motherboard

It required all 4 changes to get my system to do a successful repair
install. Sheesh!

-->Neil

 

[Kerry Brown]

Okay, the system is back up. I had more than one problem, and I'm not
sure why it worked before:

1) Defective Maxtor/133 ATA interface (causing interrupt problems)

2) Had "USB Boot" turned on

3) Had "Plug and play aware OS" turned off

4) Downloaded the latest RAID driver from Intel for my motherboard

It required all 4 changes to get my system to do a successful repair
install. Sheesh!

Glad you got it working. I'd suspect 1 & 4 as the culprits. Even though I
suggested 2 if that is causing a problem it usually does it during the POST.
I have never seen 3 cause a problem but who knows?

Kerry