Nov 25, 2015

INNACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE - aka: how much I hate intel rapid raid


One beer and 2 episodes of DBZ Super, I am finally back to a functional Windows 10 machine. Also known as wasting two hours by beating your head against a useless recovery capabilities of Windows 10 and Intels incompetence at writing drivers.

Hardware:
GA-EX58-DS4 with 4 drives in Raid 5.

Scenario:
Upgraded from Windows 7 to Windows 10, and because I am an idiot, upgraded Intel Rapid Raid driver from 14.5 to 14.6

After the reboot I got the :( INNACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE . Instantly the memories of how much I hate upgrading intel drivers rushed back into my head, and I remember every time I swore never to upgrade their piece of %#@ drivers again...

Solution:
Most of what I did I borrowed from janbambas.cz

1: Boot into Windows 10 recovery mode. Advanced -> very Advanced -> Command prompt
2: Go to <system drive>\Windows\System32\drivers  (example: C:\Windows\System32\drivers)
3: Make a backup of existing driver files: ias*
3a: mkdir bad_intel
3b: copy ias*.*   bad_intel
4: get a piece of paper and a pen.
5: go to C:\Windows\System32\DriverStore\FileRepository and search for all folders with older version of a driver in it (dir /s iastora.sys)
6: write down a couple of characters to uniquely identify each folder. (example: iastorac.inf_amd64_47ebd65d436e75d0 - take the _47)
In my case I had 5 folders..
7: Start the recovery process:
7a: Take a look at timestamps iaStorA.sys in all of the FileRepository folders you got from search.
7b. Copy over the newest one over to C:\Windows\System32\drivers
7c. Exit command prompt (literally type exit)
7d. Click the button to continue booting to windows 10 and cross your fingers.
7e. If it doesn't work, go back to start and repeat with the next file. This is why you have paper, so you dont forget where you are in the process)

This process worked for me on 3rd file, which was from a few months ago.

Good luck, and if this works, have a beer in the honor of janbambas.cz

useful links:
* http://www.janbambas.cz/inaccessible_boot_device-on-windows-10-boot-after-update-of-the-intel-rapid-storage-techonology-driver/

* https://communities.intel.com/thread/78198?wapkw=intel+matrix+storage+and+windows+10+bsod+at+boot