What does BSOD 83 (NO_BOOT_DEVICE) mean?

Status / error code:		Category:

Constant name:
Source:		Operating System:
Description: Windows could not identify or use the boot device required for system startup.

Could be also:
Constant	Type	OS
ERROR_FAIL_I24	Win32 error	Windows
ELIBEXEC	errno	Linux
EDEVERR	errno	Mac
ELIBACC	errno	Solaris

NO_BOOT_DEVICE

Boot device selection failure

NO_BOOT_DEVICE is bug check code 0x00000053. This code belongs to early boot and storage initialization. It indicates that the kernel boot path could not find or use the device expected to contain the boot/system volume.

How to read it in a dump

The important evidence is the boot phase: firmware, boot manager, OS loader, kernel storage initialization, or file-system mount.
Check whether the disk is absent, the controller mode changed, the boot driver is missing, or the partition layout no longer matches the boot configuration.
Distinguish it from later mount or file-system bug checks that happen after the kernel has already reached normal I/O initialization.

What to check

Check UEFI/BIOS storage mode, NVMe/SATA/RAID drivers, virtual machine disk attachment, BCD entries, and recent imaging or partitioning changes.
If a dump is available, inspect boot-start storage drivers and the device stack.
On virtual machines, verify the disk controller type and boot disk mapping.

References

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