Last month, we reported a rare (and unexpected) bug plaguing AMD’s Radeon graphics drivers. Installing the Adrenalin Edition 23.2.1 driver resulted in a frustrating BSOD that just wouldn’t go away. Restarting after the driver update slammed us into the “Inaccessible Boot Drive” error. It took a system restore and a complete reinstallation of the Radeon drivers using DDU to eliminate the problem.
Nearly a month after the issue surfaced (and was ignored), AMD has issued an official statement acknowledging it. The other day an editor of PC World was caught unprepared by this very BSOD that prevented startups. Team Red finally took action, helping the outlet sort out the issue. Here’s the official response from AMD’s spokesperson:
We have reproduced an issue that can occur in an extremely small number of instances if a PC update occurs during the installation of AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition, and we are actively investigating. We recommend users ensure all system updates are applied or paused before installing the driver, and that the “Factory Reset” option is unchecked during the AMD driver installation process. We are committed to resolve issues as quickly as possible and strongly encourage users to submit issues with AMD Software: Adrenalin Edition via the Bug Report Tool.
AMD statement to PC World
Running a Factory Reset of the Radeon drivers while a Windows update is scheduled (at the next startup) can corrupt or brick your Windows installation. As we suggested in our earlier report, you need to access the Windows Recovery tools and revert to an earlier backup (System Restore or something similar).
I’d like to know why it took AMD this long even to acknowledge this issue. Users have complained about this problem across Reddit, Twitter, and other forums. Yet it took an inquiry from a major publication for AMD to investigate this bug.