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I bought a new laptop (Lenovo Thinkpad) which came with Windows 10 installed. I threw out the hard disk, replaced it with an SSD and installed Linux on it.

Now I put the old hard disk into an USB disk case and tried to boot, but Windows throws an error while booting (the USB disk was recognized properly and also the Windows partition was detected). The message says that the computer has to be restarted. It gives the following error code: INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE

What do I have to do that I can boot the existing Windows 10 installation from USB? I would like to avoid swapping the SSD again, so solutions which keep the HD in the USB case are preferred.

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  • Before I start writing out a detailed suggestion, what exactly is the error that you see when trying to boot the Windows disk?
    – Unencoded
    Commented May 1, 2016 at 22:58
  • Thanks for your question, I added the error message to my question.
    – Bob
    Commented May 2, 2016 at 6:46
  • as far as I know, Windows does not recognize usb disk partitions, secondly, you won't be able to boot from a USB without using a thirdparty tool to make it possible such as WinToUSB tool, and this needs a fresh installation.
    – iSR5
    Commented May 7, 2016 at 23:10

3 Answers 3

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Ah, INACCESSIBLE BOOT DEVICE seems to be a windows 10 favourite...

The first possible solution is outlined below, with an extra twist in case you need it. It seems to work for most people, but as your circumstances are slightly different we will have to see:

  1. At the blue screen where the error appears, click Advanced Options
  2. Click Troubleshoot
  3. Look for an "Advanced Startup" or "Startup Options" menu
  4. A list of boot options is displayed
  5. Click Restart
  6. Upon restarting you'll be taken to the boot options you previously saw in #4
  7. Boot into Safe Mode by pressing the appropriate key
  8. Once you're back into your desktop in Safe Mode, reboot your PC and everything should be back to normal.

If this doesn't work, during the restart that you trigger in step 5 enter the BIOS and change your SATA mode controller to IDE from ACHI, or vice versa, and try safe mode again. If that doesn't work it's time to look at setting up a USB recovery drive to tackle the problem.

The issue often seems to arrive from a changed SATA controller mode, which usually is done when changing from an HDD to an SSD, but as I said thing might be a little different here, hope it helps.

Additions based on comments:

I am aware that booting windows from a USB device is not natively supported, however I have myself achieved this in the past using a program which overcomes this limitation: WintoUSB. I have only ever used this to create "new" installs of Windows, but it may be possible to leverage the same ability to boot an existing Windows installation.

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    enter the BIOS and change your SATA mode controller to IDE from ACHI, or vice versa The OP already told that it happens after (and pretty much certainly because) he put the SSD (that is originally connected to SATA apparently) to a USB disk case. (Also see the title...)
    – Tom Yan
    Commented May 3, 2016 at 6:34
  • The HDD is in a USB enclosure now - I put the old hard disk into an USB disk case. Usually when installing an SSD AHCI is used instead of IDE, so perhaps the SATA controller is now set to AHCI, resulting in a non - functional HDD.
    – Unencoded
    Commented May 3, 2016 at 18:54
  • My point is the SATA mode setting in BIOS/UEFI setting would not matter anymore because it's now a USB drive. (The OP already told that it happens after (and pretty much certainly because) he put the SSD... And sorry I meant HDD)
    – Tom Yan
    Commented May 4, 2016 at 3:41
  • I cannot follow your steps 100%: there are no "Advanced options" on the blue screen. However, when I reboot after the blue screen I get into a repair mode. But in this repair mode I could not find anything showing a list of boot options. I checked every button available there.
    – Bob
    Commented May 4, 2016 at 7:21
  • @Tom Yan, you are of course right, thank you for pointing that out, I should have noticed. ------------- What options do you see Bob? The usual path is as follows: "Troubleshoot" -> "Advanced Options" -> "Startup Settings" and the clicking restart. Dependant on what you mean by repair mode, you might not have to click through the first two options.
    – Unencoded
    Commented May 4, 2016 at 19:49
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Windows does not support boot from a USB disk.

Instead of booting directly from the external disk, you could use VirtualBox to build a virtual machine that boots from the external USB disk.

Here is one reference among the many that can be found :
Using a Physical Hard Drive with a VirtualBox VM.

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I fell over this article when I needed a copy of one of my physical machines. It had a hardware failure and I raided the disk, but before that I imaged it. When the replacement machine had a problem and I had to RMA it I wound up with a problem and decided to try and resurrect the original machine. Unfortunately with the repurposing of the existing C drive, I only had a disk image left and only a NVMe drive to put it on and only a USB adapter to put that in.

After a bit of searching I found the WinToUSB app and used the Windows To Go conversion on my existing disk from my laptop. Once done I tried to boot it.

Which wound with with Inaccessible Boot device. Now this is something I'm well used to with my Virtual Machine conversions, it is simply a matter of the USB driver not being set to start at boot (start type of 0), in the registry.

I also knew something else from my prior experiences with Windows To Go. If you install to USB2.0, USB3.0 will not boot.

I took the drive out of the USB3.0 slot and put it into USB2.0. I then booted into windows and logged in, opened up Regedit and navigated to Computer\HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Services

I then took everything which looked like USB3.0 required to boot and set the Start value for each entry to 0.

I shut down the PC, swapped the drive from USB2.0 to USB3.0 and it booted fine. One Windows To Go from the existing install.

If you only have USB3.0 ports on the machine (some of mine do), you can plug the drive into another computer and use the article linked here, then take it out again and reboot it.

If you want to get all fancy and have VMWare workstation, you can connect it as a physical drive and boot into Windows to do the same.

Best, if you want to take an existing OS, is to change the start value before imaging the machine to USB.

Hope this helps and is not too late.

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