Like any self-respecting computer geek, I like everything. I typically run-up Windows on my Macs by installing it via Boot Camp, and then booting it as a VM. This lets me run everything in parallel, but also go full native mode when needed.
Recently, I found I couldn’t boot my Windows natively any more, though it would still work fine in my VMware Fusion. When booting natively, my Windows install with BSOD on an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE exception. After a bit of googling, I found that this was likely related to storage drivers. I ultimately managed to fix my Windows environment (without a reinstall), here are the steps:
- Launch your Windows environment from within a VM under macOS. You will need to operate on your Windows C:\ from within a Virtualized Environment because the storage volume will be unlocked and accessible, but there won’t be a need for a special driver running under Windows for this.
- Use the Boot Camp Assistant to fetch the Boot Camp Drivers. Copy them in to your Windows environment.
- Boot the Windows VM from a Windows Installer Disk Image.
- Open a command-line by pressing shift+F10 (fn+shift+F10)
- Run the command:
dsim /Image:C:\ /Add-Driver /driver:c:\path\to\your\boot-camp\drivers\$WinPEDriver$ /recurse
(Update the /driver part to match your system’s configuration) - That’s it, it should have run and now your Windows environment will be natively bootable again, at least, mine is.
This method was adapted from that described here: https://twocanoes.com/knowledge-base/resolving-inaccessible_boot_device-error-after-restoring-winclone-image/
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