I recently upgraded my Dell XPS 8950 by replacing the original NVIDIA 3060 Ti with a Powercolor Reaper 9070. Initially, things went smoothly, and I installed the AMD graphics driver after removing the NVIDIA driver with DDU. However, I've been encountering some intermittent issues where my computer throws an INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD after restarts, especially if I turn it on shortly after shutting it down. The boot process often hangs at the Dell loading screen, and when it happens, I can't access the BIOS. Sometimes, the Dell SupportAssist runs a recovery scan and claims to find no issues. After some attempts, it eventually boots up normally, but the problem comes back days later. This issue never appeared with the NVIDIA card. I'm wondering if anyone else has experienced this and what potential solutions could fix it without a full Windows reinstall.
2 Answers
To tackle the BSOD issue, first try to retrieve those dump files for a better diagnosis. If you can boot into Windows or Safe Mode, check the C:WindowsMinidump directory for any files. You can zip any dump files you find and upload them to a file-sharing site like catbox.moe. Having multiple files is ideal for analysis, so if you don't have many, follow a guide to enable Small Memory Dumps, which won’t overwrite older files.
It sounds like your SSD might be having issues, especially since you mentioned the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error started after the driver change. Try checking its status with CrystalDiskInfo. If it's in decent health but you're only seeing the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE error, also look through Event Viewer for any specific disk or hardware-related errors. If you see anything unusual, that might give you a clue about what’s going wrong.
I checked CrystalDiskInfo, and my SSD is at 96% health with no critical warnings. I’ve only had the INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE BSOD, but I noticed some errors in the event logs related to my volume needing a full CHKDSK. Might just be worth running that command to see if it helps!