Windows 10: CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED and BOOT_DEVICE_INACCESSIBLE BSOD cycle

I've poked around the forums to find similar issues -- I promise -- but they generally don't seem to follow the same pattern as mine. Most of the advice is "reinstall Windows 10," and given how recently I did that (via long two-step installation and update from Windows 8), I don't have the faith that it'll work better this time. Thanks in advance for any insight you guys might have.

I went through a whole drive-clearing, OS-installing procedure about a 13 days ago. It's worked pretty well until now, but in the last couple days, I've started getting incessant BSOD's. The BOOT_DEVICE error was the first... for a day it happened every time I tried to boot, and the way I discovered to fix it was to enter BIOS and select "Restore Defaults and Restart."

After a day of this -- trying to fix this issue, but not finding much -- I also discovered the CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED BSOD's. They're very unpredictable... they seem to happen after it hangs for several seconds, but aren't correlated with any particular activity or application. They've been happening often enough that I'm generally a bit paranoid about it. And it still boots into the BOOT_DEVICE BSOD, about 60-70% of the time.

I fear this is a cascade of multiple problems... BIOS, boot order, memory management, etc. Any recommendations?

Thanks again -

:)

 

Computer reboots with: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000ef

Auggy, what does it mean One of the resolved issues is "BSOD during S3/S4 cycling with a bug check 0xEF(CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED" ?

Is this something you saw in the dmp file?

 

Computer reboots with: The computer has rebooted from a bugcheck. The bugcheck was: 0x000000ef

Try updating the Intel storage driver to the latest version:

https://downloadcenter.intel.com/download/27400...

One of the resolved issues is "BSOD during S3/S4 cycling with a bug check 0xEF(CRITICAL_PROCESS_DIED"

 

Hi symbot,

Welcome to the 10forums.

Please make a screenshot of your disk management and post it.

Please make sure your BIOS is the newest version and that it is loaded for optimal settings, this includes possible needed changes for normal functioning.