Windows isn’t considered as malleable as Linux is when it comes to lower-level system tweaks and fixes, but you might be surprised to learn that the recovery tools built in to Windows are actually pretty powerful. Recently, my friend was playing Detroit: Become Human when her PC suddenly froze. After a reboot, she was hit with an “inaccessible boot device” error, and subsequent reboots were met with a screen that required her BitLocker key. Entering it looped back around to the inaccessible boot device screen.
That system, powered by an Intel Core i5-14600K and an Intel Arc A770, appeared to be dead entirely. Startup repair couldn’t fix it, and Bitlocker’s refusal to unlock the drive with the provided key had me fearing the worst. Thankfully, she keeps backups of all…