Unable to boot as drive is inaccessable

Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

  1. Posts : 7
    Windows 7 64
       #1

    Unable to boot as drive is inaccessable


    I have a boot issue, I've looked online and found some people have had similar problems but I have been unable to find a resolution.

    Specs:
    ASUS P8P67
    Intel i7-2600K
    NVIDIA 570GTX (currently underclocked by 100mhz)
    8GB RAM GSkill DDR3 @ 1600mhz
    Antec TruePower 750W
    *GSkill 120GB Phoenix Pro SSD
    *Samsung 1.5TB SATA
    *Seagate 3TB SATA
    Windows 7 Pro - 64 bit

    About 2 months ago, my GSkill SSD failed (or I thought it did), it went through phases of locking up and BSOD followed by "unable to boot as drive is inaccessable. Error 0xc000000e."

    I sent the drive away, and got a new one last week and have since reinstalled all my old programs, etc. In the interim I bought a 3TB hard drive to use as a replacement (my 1.5TB is used for media/storage/etc).

    I have been using my SSD problem free for the last week, so I thought I would format my 3TB to get some more storage space so I initially deleted it from the boot records then attempted to format it while windows is booted from my SSD, but it was unable to format.

    I disconnected my 3TB to put into another machine to format, and upon reboot of my computer, the "unable to boot as drive is inaccessable" error appeared again, i disconnected my 1.5TB as well, and tried to boot again, same error. I reconnected my 3TB, and my computer booted no dramas.

    Any ideas??
      My Computer


  2. Posts : 1,711
    Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601
       #2

    Welcome to sevenforums. :)

    Can you post a screenshot of your Disk Manager? I have a sneaking suspicion that the system reserved partition is still on the 3TB drive. That small hidden partition is necessary to boot windows 7. It's easy to fix, but I want some proofs before I send you doing stuff.

    Write "disk manager" in the Start searchbox to find it quickly. Here tells how to post a screenshot.
      My Computer


  3. Posts : 7
    Windows 7 64
    Thread Starter
       #3

    Thanks for your prompt reply;

    Here is the requested snippit. Disk drive D: is the 3TB drive
    Attached Thumbnails Attached Thumbnails Unable to boot as drive is inaccessable-capture.png  
      My Computer


  4. Posts : 7
    Windows 7 64
    Thread Starter
       #4

    Is there some way it may be relying on files from another hard drive to boot? When I installed Win 7 on the SSD, none of the other drives were connected.
      My Computer


  5. Posts : 1,711
    Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601
       #5

    Ok, so it is just an issue of Active partitions.

    If you see, both the HDDs are marked as Active, when only the boot partition (C: in your case since you don't have that system reserved partition) should be marked as such. And yours isn't.

    It's a bit more complex than anticipated.

    From Disk Manager rightclick on C: partition and select "mark as active".

    Open command prompt with administrative privileges, (this tutorial), then write
    diskpart and press enter
    list disk and press enter
    select disk 1 (which is the 3 TB hard drive, you can see its number in Disk Manager) and press enter
    list partition and press enter (t should list only one partition called Partition 1, the size as you see in disk manager)
    select partition 1 and press enter
    inactive and press enter.
    now we do the same to the 1.5 TB disk
    select disk 2 (which is the 1.5 TB hard drive) and press enter
    list partition and press enter (t should list only one partition called Partition 1)
    select partition 1 and press enter
    inactive and press enter.

    You should now see from Disk Manager that either of the two hard drives is no more marked as Active.

    Then you reboot.
    If it still fails booting this time (which would mean it is missing boot files as I was speculating above) you need to do a startup repair, this tutorial, and you should be good to go.

    Btw, is there a reason to have more than 1 TB of unallocated space on your 3 TB hard drive? (so that in My Computer you see it as a 2 TB drive, not a 3 TB drive)
    Last edited by bobafetthotmail; 29 Jun 2013 at 11:03.
      My Computer


  6. Posts : 7
    Windows 7 64
    Thread Starter
       #6

    Thanks, I'm at work so I will give it a go when I get home.

    What does making them inactive do?

    It's sized to 2TB due to the MBR formatting, it wouldn't let me set the partition size greater than 2GB.
      My Computer


  7. Posts : 1,711
    Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601
       #7

    What does making them inactive do?
    Tells the BIOS that they don't contain boot files. The BIOS (the motherboard's firmware) does not have the smarts to find out this detail on its own.
    So it won't try to boot from them and then giving errors like this guy here did experience.

    Your issue was caused by C not being set as Active, but marking the other drives as inactive will avoid other issues in the future. They are data disks, not system disks, only system partition (or the system reserved partition if you have it) should be marked as active.

    It's sized to 2TB due to the MBR formatting
    I assume you did it to be able to boot it, as maybe your motherboard isn't able to boot a GPT disk. Anyway now that it is back to being a data disk, you can get it back to GPT by following this tutorial.
      My Computer


  8. Posts : 7
    Windows 7 64
    Thread Starter
       #8

    I have marked them both as inactive, I've noticed that the status of Disk 1 is "System, Primary Partition" and Disk 0 is "Boot, Page File, Active, Crash Dump, Primary Partition", does it matter that Disk 0 is not "System" as well?
      My Computer


  9. Posts : 1,711
    Win 7 Pro 64-bit 7601
       #9

    I hope your C drive has been marked as active as well, as I said above.

    That System in the wrong place may need you to do a startup repair up to three times as in this tutorial, in case when you reboot without D it fails to boot again. (do startup repair without D connected)
    As that drive seems to still contain boot files or components of them anyway, and a startup repair is the fastest way to fix the issue.

    Then after you got the SSD working fine on its own, you can connect the D drive again, reformat and rebuild the MBR to erase any possible trace that it was a system disk (to not confuse the BIOS). Moving that disk to GPT as in the tutorial above should do the trick without more command prompt magics.
      My Computer


  10. whs
    Posts : 26,210
    Vista, Windows7, Mint Mate, Zorin, Windows 8
       #10

    The problem seems to be simple. Your Disk0 (SSD) has no bootmgr. It is sitting either on Disk1 or Disk2. Leave those active and copy the bootmgr to C:

    Bootmgr - Move to C:\ with EasyBCD

    The set Disk0 as first boot device in the BIOS.
      My Computer


 
Page 1 of 2 12 LastLast

  Related Discussions
Our Sites
Site Links
About Us
Windows 7 Forums is an independent web site and has not been authorized, sponsored, or otherwise approved by Microsoft Corporation. "Windows 7" and related materials are trademarks of Microsoft Corp.

© Designer Media Ltd
All times are GMT -5. The time now is 05:26.
Find Us