Tweet
A couple of days ago I went to the official ASRock website just to check if there were new drivers for Windows 8 that I've had since its official release date for MSDN and TechNet users, August 15. I didn't notice anything new among the drivers so I went to the BIOS section. As soon as I saw that the latest bios update for my motherboard (3.20) brings an improvement for Windows 8 I thought I would get the update and run it. I'm a long time PC user with many years of experience. I've never had any issues updating BIOS before.
I read the instruction provided by ASRock and proceeded by closing all applications and running the .exe. There were no visible errors. The program asked if I wanted to restart the system and I clicked OK. The updating process continued out of the OS. Another restart occurred. After that I could not boot into Windows 8 getting the same BSOD every time. It said INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. I've spent the whole day trying to repair the system, changing BIOS settings and seeing if my HDD was doing ok. None of that has helped. I also realized I had my iPod connected to the PC during the updating process and that it may have caused some issues. I used to have been unable to boot into Windows 7 with it plugged in.
When I went to the official ASRock website again from a different PC to download the same BIOS update and copy it to my USB stick I saw that the installation instructions I've previously read were not for Windows Vista or newer operating systems. I was meant to scroll down and see that I needed to run the update as administrator. I usually disable the UAC altogether but it was enabled in Windows 8, so that may have been another mistake on my side.
On that same day I booted into Windows XP from a USB stick and updated BIOS to 3.20 once again, now making sure there's no iPod and UAC. That still didn't allow me to boot into my only operating system that was Windows 8.
On the next day I decided to completely reinstall Windows 8 as I was out of options. I did that from the USB stick with no apparent errors during the installation. I was able to boot into the system this time but using it was impossible. It would give me different types of BSODs all the time. The minidumps and the BSOD messages have been pointing at filesystem corruption and issues with my HDD. Even though I knew I haven't done anything about my hardware and all this started after the first BIOS update, I decided to give it a try and completely format my system drive, then reinstall the OS again. I plugged in my USB stick but the Windows installation program would always give me a BSOD. I had to plug it into a different USB port to stop the BSODs. That way I was able to format and install, but using the system was just like before. I still get a BSOD no matter what I do. The programs in the system also crash, sometimes they don't install, all despite it being a fresh OS installation and recently formatted HDD. The model of the HDD is Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS. I have another one that's older and it's ST31000333AS. All my files are on it now. I'm really out of options and it feels like my computer is completely broken just because of the BIOS update. I don't know how to fix it.
One more thing: Windows 8 can't be to blame as I've used it for more than 2 weeks every day with my computer running 24/7 prior to updating BIOS. No BSODs have appeared.
Right now I'm running a newly installed Windows 7 and also getting BSODs referring to ntoskrnl.exe. There are also random application crashes, as in Windows 8. Perhaps there's not as many BSODs but they're there.
I read the instruction provided by ASRock and proceeded by closing all applications and running the .exe. There were no visible errors. The program asked if I wanted to restart the system and I clicked OK. The updating process continued out of the OS. Another restart occurred. After that I could not boot into Windows 8 getting the same BSOD every time. It said INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE. I've spent the whole day trying to repair the system, changing BIOS settings and seeing if my HDD was doing ok. None of that has helped. I also realized I had my iPod connected to the PC during the updating process and that it may have caused some issues. I used to have been unable to boot into Windows 7 with it plugged in.
When I went to the official ASRock website again from a different PC to download the same BIOS update and copy it to my USB stick I saw that the installation instructions I've previously read were not for Windows Vista or newer operating systems. I was meant to scroll down and see that I needed to run the update as administrator. I usually disable the UAC altogether but it was enabled in Windows 8, so that may have been another mistake on my side.
On that same day I booted into Windows XP from a USB stick and updated BIOS to 3.20 once again, now making sure there's no iPod and UAC. That still didn't allow me to boot into my only operating system that was Windows 8.
On the next day I decided to completely reinstall Windows 8 as I was out of options. I did that from the USB stick with no apparent errors during the installation. I was able to boot into the system this time but using it was impossible. It would give me different types of BSODs all the time. The minidumps and the BSOD messages have been pointing at filesystem corruption and issues with my HDD. Even though I knew I haven't done anything about my hardware and all this started after the first BIOS update, I decided to give it a try and completely format my system drive, then reinstall the OS again. I plugged in my USB stick but the Windows installation program would always give me a BSOD. I had to plug it into a different USB port to stop the BSODs. That way I was able to format and install, but using the system was just like before. I still get a BSOD no matter what I do. The programs in the system also crash, sometimes they don't install, all despite it being a fresh OS installation and recently formatted HDD. The model of the HDD is Seagate Barracuda ST31000524AS. I have another one that's older and it's ST31000333AS. All my files are on it now. I'm really out of options and it feels like my computer is completely broken just because of the BIOS update. I don't know how to fix it.
One more thing: Windows 8 can't be to blame as I've used it for more than 2 weeks every day with my computer running 24/7 prior to updating BIOS. No BSODs have appeared.
Right now I'm running a newly installed Windows 7 and also getting BSODs referring to ntoskrnl.exe. There are also random application crashes, as in Windows 8. Perhaps there's not as many BSODs but they're there.
Comment