Since I can see all Windows 7 files from C: (XP) is there an easier way to do this bypassing DOS? The Windows 7 errors I experienced in the automatic repair are: Boot Manager failed to find OS Loader.
Hello - the original problem was that msconfig showed the system stuck in Selective mode with 'use original boot configuration' grayed out, so attempts to put the system back to Normal mode failed. I used the established procedures to recreate the BCD (the following commands in WinRE command prompt): attrib c: boot bcd -h- s -r ren c: boot bcd bcd.old bootrec /rebuildbct (enter Y to add the entry) The thing is, it does not find the Windows XP I have installed, so it boots directly to Windows 10, instead of offering me a menu where I can choose Windows 10 or 'older versions of Windows' To add insult to injury, the msconfig shows the system still stuck in Selective mode, so recreating the BCD was a waste of time. Does anybody know how to add the XP install to the BCD? I know I can restore the old BCD I backed up, but I was interested in seeing if there was a way to add it to the fresh BCD. Thanks for any info. Windows 10 boot up displays Remove disks or other media Press any key to restart I learned about bootrec at: How to fix MBR-helper in Windows 10 However, I tried those four steps: Bootrec /fixmbr Bootrec /fixboot Bootrec /scanos Bootrec /rebuildbcd and I still receive the error message in the title of this thread. Neither scanos nor rebuildbcd found a windows installation, but I'm looking at my C drive from the recovery command prompt, and don't know why it isn't finding it.
There is a C: WINDOWS directory with 45 files and 79 dirs. How it particular does bootrec determine it found a windows installation? Does bootrec work with unlocked BitLocker drives?
I know this question has been asked before but I've tried all the usual fixes and nothing works. Basically the hard drive had two partitions with Vista and Windows 7.
I've deleted the Vista partition to make more room and expanded the Windows 7 partition to fill the drive (using GParted). I've tried:. Running Startup Repair - it doesn't find any problems. Setting partition to Active - worked. bootsect /nt60 c: - worked. BootRec /FixMbr - worked. BootRec /FixBoot - worked.
BootRec /ScanOs - I get the message 'Total identified Windows installations: 0'. BootRec /RebuildBcd - I get the message 'Total identified Windows installations: 0' BcdEdit shows a Windows Boot Manager and a Windows Boot Loader, both on C: partition.
Update. Rename BCD and rerun BootRec /RebuildBcd - worked.
Copy bootmgr from DVD - blocked because the file's already there. Update 2 I found an article that mentioned some other commands. C: chkdsk /f /r - worked. sfc /scannow /offbootdir=c: /offwindir=c: windows - worked (see ). What else can I try?
This seems to indicate that faced with an empty disk, Windows installation does extra initializations that are not done for repair. My advice of clearing out the BCD store might have had the same effect or might not, maybe not. It is because of such unknowns that if the usual solutions don't work, one should reformat the disk and start afresh (as I also advised).
You were real lucky to have been able to keep your Windows partition, which probably worked only because you have already done Startup Repair on it, which has fixed up the registry but not all of the boot-sector(s) files. – Nov 23 '11 at 9:44. I guess that you had Vista on the disk as partition 1 and then Windows 7 as partition 2, then deleted Vista, meaning that Windows 7 is now on partition 1. Unfortunately, Windows identifies its partitions by their numbers, so that all partition references in the Windows 7 registry are now incorrect and unusable. I believe that you will have to reinstall Windows 7. A simple should be enough, and will only refresh Windows and not disturb the installed applications. Or, for the sneaky solution, you could create some small empty space on the disk before the Windows 7 partition and format it as NTFS, in effect recreating a surrogate dummy partition 1 that will restore the Windows 7 partition to its number 2 position on the disk.
You might still need to do again Startup Repair. EDIT You could force Windows to recreate the BCD store partition by booting from the DVD into the Command Prompt option of Repair and entering: bcdedit /export C: BCDBackup ren c: boot bcd bcd.old bootrec /rebuildbcd In case of a permissions problem, use the command attrib bcd -s -h -r before the rename. Reboot, and if it doesn't work then do Startup Repair again. Another desperate solution is to assume that bootmgr got corrupted and boot as above and do: ren c: bootmgr deletemelatter bootrec /rebuildbcd bootrec /fixboot If nothing works, just reformat the entire disk and install from scratch.
Not every problem can be analyzed or has a solution. Windows boot loader identifies partitions by offset in sectors + 4-byte disk signature in MBR. So when you moved your system partition with GParted, two odd things happened: 1) Disk offset of Win7 system partition changed, all references stored in BCD and SYSTEM registry hives are now broken. 2) Win7 system partition now has the same ID as WinVista system partition used to have, so two references now collide: bootloader with old settings tries to boot Win7 as Vista, but fails.
Basically you need to remove BCD registry hive and rebuild it from scratch, and also fix reference to disk C: in Win7's MountedDevices in SYSTEM registry hive. Using you can delete BCD in the 'File Manager', then recreate BCD from scratch and fix MountedDevices in 'Mount & Boot Center'. This is just a clarifying comment on Narkevich's remark (I wanted just to add a comment but seemed to be barred from doing so The reason you didn't need the /s x: option is that by default, bcd boot changes the bcd on the volume which is currently active. That's almost always what you want.
If one specifies /s and a drive letter, then either 1. The drive letter is the active volume, and the command would do the same thing without /s x: as with it;or 2. The drive letter is different from the current active volume. In this case what actually happens at boot time could only affected if either the bcd on the active disk is corrupt, and or 2. At some later time you change which disk is marked active to the one named after /s.