A user reports that they accidentally unplugged their CMOS battery. The unit was reinstalled, but all subsequent boot attempts have resulted in a BSOD. Which of the following should be the FIRST item checked by the technician?

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D. AHCI - IDE setting under SATA options in the BIOS When a CMOS battery is removed, BIOS settings revert to defaults, which often changes the SATA controller mode from AHCI (used by most modern OS installations) to IDE or Legacy mode. Windows loads the SATA driver matching the mode it was installed under; if the mode changes, Windows encounters an inaccessible boot device or driver mismatch, causing a BSOD. Restoring the correct AHCI/IDE setting in BIOS resolves this immediately.

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A. Whether the boot order now has the optical drive in position one An incorrect boot order would cause a 'No bootable device' error or boot from the wrong media, not a BSOD after Windows begins loading.

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B. If the BIOS can detect the hard drive at all If the BIOS could not detect the hard drive at all, the system would fail before reaching Windows, producing a different error rather than a BSOD.

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C. Whether the SATA power cable was unplugged A missing SATA power cable would prevent the drive from spinning up, causing a pre-boot detection error, not a BSOD during Windows loading.

A user reports that they accidentally unplugged their CMOS battery. The unit was reinstalled, but all subsequent boot attempts have resulted in a BSOD. Which of the following should be the FIRST…

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