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Holaway's avatar
Holaway
Steel Contributor
Mar 07, 2025

In place windows 11 upgrade results in a BSOD after the first restart.

I've been trying to do an in place upgrade of my Windows 11 system to see if it will fix some issues I am having. I have tried the 'old' in place upgrade using a 24H2 ISO and also tried the newer Settings/System/Recovery Fix problems using Windows Update /Reinstall feature.

The upgrade goes fine in both cases but when the system reboots to Windows it gets a BSOD INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. It appears the upgrade has mucked around with my boot device so that it can't be found. My boot device is setup properly in my BIOS and I've had no problems of this sort other than doing this repair install. When I reboot again things go into revert back to previous version mode to what I had before. So this isn't your run of the mill boot device problem. As I said the install must have made my boot drive inaccessible in some way. After I'm back to my previous version it boots just fine. Also restoring a disk image I took prior to the repair install boots fine. So it must be the install playing games on me. Maybe it's downloading some incorrect disk controller drivers. I boot from a NVMe M.2 PCIe Gen4 SSD.

Any thoughts on this?

BTW... I did a clean install with no problems. I didn't stay with this as I have way to many things to reinstall and don't have the time or where with all to do it.

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  • harbo's avatar
    harbo
    Copper Contributor
    Jul 09, 2025

    I just had his happen with the most recent Windows Release Update. My system is a AMD 520 motherboard with 5600g CPU. I use the AMD Raid with Hard Drives and have an NVME SSD for Windows Install. Suddenly after the Windows Update, my nvme ssd bood drive is showing up under my raid controller, rather than a seperate drive in the bios. It turns out that AMD updated their RAID drivers to allow NVME as a part of RAID, but the windows update didn't include the new RAID driver, so after the Windows update, my PC would BSOD on startup. I updated the bios and tried to remove the drive from the RAID controller but that caused me to lose the boot drive. I tried multiple times to repair using Windows repair disk and nothing worked. I did try to log into safe mode but it failed.

    So I installed a fresh Windows 11 and started updated everything, but my RAID drives would not show up in Windows. I tried rebooting but I was back to BSOD at boot.

    To fix the problem I finally downloaded the new AMD Raid drivers and put it on a USB drive. I went to install a fresh Windows 11 again, but this time I installed the nvme driver from the USB drive that had the AMD Raid drivers on. You have to do this before installing Windows 11 and suddenly all of my raid drives and nvme ssd showed up in the list of drives to install Windows 11 to. 

    I can't believe that Microsoft would have an udate that breaks Booting into Windows 11 when using RAID because AMD's new drivers don't come with the new Windows Update. This all happened because AMD is now including NVME drives in their Raid drivers.

  • Zachariahh's avatar
    Zachariahh
    Iron Contributor
    Mar 18, 2025

    If you’re using RAID, consider reverting it back to AHCI if applicable. During the installation process, ensure that you have the latest storage controller drivers. You can download these from your motherboard or NVMe SSD manufacturer's website. When running the in-place upgrade, you can provide the driver during the installation process by selecting "Load Driver" if prompted.

  • UriahZane's avatar
    UriahZane
    Iron Contributor
    Mar 15, 2025

    1. Enter Safe Mode:
    Reboot your computer and press F8 or Shift + F8 at startup to access advanced boot options.
    Select “Safe Mode” boot and check if the problem still exists.
    2. Rollback to previous system:
    In Safe Mode, open “Settings” > “System” > “Recovery” and select “Rollback to previous version “.
    3. Update or rollback the driver:
    Open “Device Manager”, check if any device shows a yellow exclamation mark.
    Right click on the device and select “Update Driver” or “Rollback Driver”.
    4. Check hardware compatibility:
    Use the PC Health Check utility to check if the device meets the minimum hardware requirements for Windows 11.
    Make sure the device supports TPM 2.0, Secure Boot and UEFI firmware.
    5. Disable unnecessary startup items:
    Press Ctrl + Shift + Esc to open Task Manager, switch to the “Startup” tab and disable unnecessary startup programs.
    6. Check BIOS/UEFI settings:
    Go to BIOS/UEFI setup and make sure TPM 2.0 and Secure Boot are enabled.
    Update the BIOS/UEFI to the latest version.
    7. Use Clean Boot:
    Press Win + R, type msconfig, and enter.
    In the “Services” tab, check “Hide all Microsoft services” and click “Disable all”.
    In the “Startup” tab, click “Open Task Manager” and disable all startup items.
    Restart your computer and try to upgrade again.
    8. Contact Microsoft Support:
    If the issue remains unresolved, submit the issue via Microsoft Support with detailed error messages and log files

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