Hello all,
I guess I'll start at the beginning: my computer has been acting funky for a while now. For the past several months, every time that I attempted to update my graphics driver (EVGA gtx 670), my computer would boot back up to a 800x400 resolution screen, and it seemed to fail to recognize my video card. So, I just reverted to older versions of the driver, and problem solved.
More recently, I was working in Maya, and my computer gave me an error. Don't remember exactly what the error was, but it was failing to save into the C:/User/Documents/Temp folder. As a fix, someone suggested to update my graphics card driver. So I gave that another shot. I used the NVIDIA control panel to update my driver, restarted my computer, and bam! Same thing again. Computer booted up to a low resolution, only displaying on my primary monitor. However, it actually finished installing this time, and did not crash. I rebooted my computer again, and everything seemed to be in working order. So, I tried Maya again, and unfortunately, it still did not work.
So that is part one. I'm not actually sure that the updating of the graphics card actually has any implications on the current troubles I'm having, but I thought that I should include it.
Fast forward to today. For research purposes, I tried to boot up a game that I haven't accessed in a while. I open Steam, try to open the game, and my computer freezes. Reboot my computer, try again, and it freezes again. I try a few other games, and they seem to work, so this is not a huge deal, I can get my screenshots online. I open another game to grab some screenshots, and the game starts fine. I attempt to use the prt sc button (yes I know that steam has a built in print screen function), and my computer freezes again. Strange. Reboot, launch the game again, prt sc again, freezes again. Weird. So eventually I use Steams print screen function.
Now that I have this new problem, I start looking for solutions. Apparently one way to fix this prt sc problem is to access Windows System Configuration-> Boot-> Advanced Options-> uncheck the Debug box. I do that, restart my computer, and prt sc seems to be working now. However, when Im in this menu, I see that my computer is only using 3gb of ram of my available 24gb (though Windows 7 64 bit can only use up to 16gb). So I restart my computer, and start looking for a fix for my RAM issue. One source suggests to disable the Maximum memory checkbox, and it seems that this is fairly well supported. So I uncheck the box, see my 24,000 pop up in the max memory area.
Great! I restart my computer again, and try to take screenshots, and again, it freezes up. So, I restart and go back into my system configuration, and see that the Debug box is checked again. Here is where I suspect things went totally wrong. I uncheck the Debug box, and I THINK, Im not positive, but I think, that out of the corner of my eye, the Maximum memory box is checked, and it has a 0 value in the max memory field. Now, Im not 100% sure of this, but I think that is what I saw. I didnt think anything of it at the time, then I restarted my computer again.
Now when attempting to start my computer, I get my BIOs option, and then it automatically loads Windows Boot Manager with the message: Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix this problem: 1.Insert your windows installation disc
. 2
.. 3
. If you do not have this disc, contact the system administrator
. Status: 0xc000000f Info: The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible ENTER=Continue
Now, strangely enough, the first couple of times that I attempted to start it, I was given the option of Starting Normally and going to the Windows repair. I tried to Start Normally a few times, and it would get to the windows loading screen, my Xbox controller would vibrate, and then I would see the blue screen of death for 0.5 seconds, and the computer would crash. Now, however, Im not even given the option to start normally, and it takes me right to the screen described above.
I dont know if this is possible, but my fear is that I accidentally set my Maximum memory ram to 0, and now the computer wont boot. My computer is about 3.5 years old, running an i5 3750k(?), EVGA GTX 670, 120gb SSD C:, 500gb B:, Asus Mobo, 24gb of ram, external hardrive, etc. Please let me know if you have any suggestions at all. Perhaps there is a way to increase the available ram through the ASUS boot manager? I really have no idea.
Thanks to anyone who can provide any help at all.
TLDR: I may have accidentally changed my Maximum memory to 0, and now my computer wont boot. I get this message: "The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible" on the boot screen.