A Mistake literally AMD driver – Adrenaline 23.2.2 and 23.2.1 – can prevent Windows PCs from booting. It is discussed in a long article in PCWorldin which, in addition to discussing the problem, there is also good news: not only that AMD engineers they did it Trace the possible cause of the errorbut they also identified a “workarounds” to bring affected PCs back to life (without formatting them) while continuing to develop a fix finally.
But what happened? Brad Chacos, Editor-in-Chief of PCWorld, explains it to us. After installing a custom Radeon RX 7900 XT on a Windows 10 workstation and deleting the remnants of other drivers (NVIDIA) with DDU – Display Driver Uninstaller, Chacos went to the AMD website, hey Downloaded Adrenalin 23.2.2 WQHL drivers and installed them Tick Reinstall instead of Upgrade. And, based on what he later reconstructed, it was that choice, along with a silent Windows update running in the background without his knowledgeto turn the mighty PC into a “rock”.
“Everything was fine until the software said I had to restart my PC to complete the driver installation. After rebooting, my system showed the MSI BIOS splash page as usual, but Blue Screen of Death (BSOD) immediately came up when attempting to load Windows, with the error code “Inaccessible Boot Device”. The system then started an endless loop of BSOD – reboot – BSOD – reboot without initiating automatic repair attempts or presenting me with the usual Windows troubleshooting options”.
After installing a reference Radeon RX 7900 XT, after two cycles of BSOD – rebooting the system tries to fix the installation itself, which makes it worse. “Rather than fixing the problem, selecting “Startup Repair” made it worse.. At the end, The screen went blank and didn’t respond at all (while it was still on). Every time I tried to boot up the PC, I saw the Windows loading circle spin for a brief moment after the BIOS screen and then return to infinite darkness,” Chacos writes.
So, out of desperation, the editor replaced the AMD GPU with a GeForce RTX 4070 Ti and then with an Intel Arc A750, but to no avail. Contacted AMD, managed to bring the PC back to life without reinstalling the operating system.
After a series of unsuccessful tests, AMD engineers They have found the right workaround: “When the BIOS splash screen appears Immediately after turning on the PC, press the power button trying to get Windows to force an automatic recovery attempt. Tried four times with no success. I was told keep it up, it will work someday. And after fifteen tries, he did!”.
Apparently that’s all a matter of timing: Pressing the power button in the split second between the disappearance of the BIOS options and the appearance of the Windows circle allowed the system to begin attempting self-recovery. Back in the Windows recovery tools menu, Chacos ‘System Restore’ selected and immediately following a restore point that brought the stuck PC back to life.
AMD did it Dozens of attempts to replicate the problem in the lab as this is a rare bug. “We have reproduced an issue that can occur in an extremely small number of cases if a PC update occurs during the installation of AMD Software Adrenalin Edition and we are actively investigating.”
“We suggest Users must ensure that all system updates are applied or stopped before installing the driver. e that the Factory Reset option is disabled during driver installation. We aim to resolve issues as quickly as possible and encourage users to report AMD Software Adrenalin Edition issues through the bug reporting tool.”
In short, if you need to update AMD drivers to the latest version, do not check this box during installation, at least not until a driver release with a fix comes out. Also, be careful with Windows and its updates, sometimes they are applied without you knowing anything about it and maybe at the wrong time.
