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NO_BOOT_DEVICE
Boot device selection failure for NO_BOOT_DEVICE
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
- Microsoft documentation
- Microsoft documentation
- Microsoft Bug Check Code Reference
- Crash dump files and WinDbg
Dump evidence
Preserve the complete dump, the four bug-check parameters, the exact Windows build, loaded-module list, and the event timeline immediately before the stop. AllStat summarizes the condition as “this result”; that sentence identifies the failure class, while the parameters and stack determine which object, driver, processor, or subsystem instance was involved.
Analysis order
- Run WinDbg
!analyze -v, then inspect the documented meaning of each parameter instead of relying only on the probably-caused-by line. - find the earliest abnormal event: driver update, firmware change, device reset, storage error, verifier report, resource exhaustion, or application hang connected with boot / device.
- keep third-party filter, security, storage, graphics, and virtualization drivers in the module inventory; removing evidence before dump analysis can obscure the responsible path.
Do not repeatedly reboot a machine affected by this result before collecting the dump and event logs. Recovery actions should follow the component identified by the stack and parameters, not merely the symbolic stop-code name.
Looking for a different code? Search another status or error code.
