The Wiert Corner – irregular stream of stuff

Jeroen W. Pluimers on .NET, C#, Delphi, databases, and personal interests

  • My badges

    Mastodon

  • Twitter Updates

  • My Flickr Stream

    20140508-Delphi-2007--Project-Options--Cannot-Edit-Application-Title-HelpFile-Icon-Theming20140430-Fiddler-Filter-Actions-Button-Run-Filterset-now20140424-VMware-Fusion-6.0.3.-no-reclaimable
    More Photos

  • Pages

  • All categories

  • Enter your email address to subscribe to this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email.

    Join 1,860 other subscribers
«
»

Fix a “Automatic Repair couldn’t repair your PC” on an UEFI system: when Windows cannot be located

Posted by jpluimers on 2025/08/22

I got the below error when booting a Dell Optiplex 7060 Micro, a machine not just supporting supporting UEFI but preferring it, on which I had copied a backed-up disk image, then moved the hidden Recovery partition to the end of the physical disk (to make room to extend either the OS or DATA partitions).

Fixing it lead me to a trip that was on the boundary of software archaeology, so this blog post has a truckload of archived links to information that is still relevant, but for which the original links have long vanished due to link rot or (often worse) part of the historic information got lost because of migration to new tooling forgot to cover important additions (especially in comments).

One thing that I had to unlearn was MBR disk basics, for instance the fact that on GPT disks a partition can be active (they can only be on MBR disks, but despite UEFI supporting both MBT and GPT, GPT disks are way more common and required). The same holds for partitions having a boot flag: that too only applies to MBR disks. For the same reason, bootrec is only useful for MBR disks. More details towards the end of this blog post. CSM (Compatibility Support Module) booting is the UEFI way to simulate BIOS boot for operating systems that do no support UEFI.

Back to the error at hand:

Automatic Repair Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC Press "Advanced options" to try other options to repair your PC or "Shut down" to turn off your PC. Log file: E:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt [Shut down] [Advanced options]

Automatic Repair
Automatic Repair couldn't repair your PC Press "Advanced options" to try other options to repair your PC or "Shut down" to turn off your PC.
Log file: E:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt
[Shut down] [Advanced options]

The message is from the Windows Boot Manager that was introduced with Windows Vista and Windows Server 2008. I have limited experience with it as my days of multi-boot systems were way before that. Since the introduction of Windows XP and Windows Server 2003 I have run other operating systems as Virtual Machines (mainly using VMware based virtualisation software).

I both wanted to learn more about the Windows Boot Manager and the underlying Boot Configuration Data (BCD) in addition I really did not want to step down from UEFI booting to BIOS based boot (which I have basically lived my whole IBM PC Compatible life). After more than 15 years, it is about time to learn more about this (:

All the reasons to really try to understand, solve this and document this:

After googling around, none of the solutions I found were a good match exactly solving this, but on the up side: they did get me going.

A frustrating part here is that the file E:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt is nowhere to be found: not on the Windows Recovery Environment (WindowsRE or WinRE) itself and not (after successfully booting) on any of the other partitions on the system.

Boot Configuration Data (BCD) has replaced boot.ini

From Boot Configuration Data (part of Source: Booting process of Windows NT since Vista: Boot Configuration Data – Wikipedia), I knew the BCD is stored in a registry file that on a UEFI system is stored on a FAT32 partition labeled “ESP” (which is the EFI system partition):

Boot Configuration Data (BCD) is a firmware-independent database for boot-time configuration data. It is used by Microsoft’s new Windows Boot Manager and replaces the boot.ini that was used by NTLDR.

Boot Configuration Data is stored in a data file that has the same format as Windows Registry hives and is eventually mounted at registry key [HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\BCD00000] (with restricted permissions). For UEFI boot, the file is located at /EFI/Microsoft/Boot/BCD on the EFI System Partition. For traditional BIOS boot, the file is at /boot/BCD on the active partition.

This also means that there is a new boot loader: the successor of NTLDR: Windows Boot Manager (sometimes namet BOOTLDR) which in turn can start winload.exe or winresume.exe.

In cases like this, it is always a good idea to look at Super User. In deed the outcome was helpful [Wayback/Archive] bcdedit – Where is the BCD store physically located? – Super User (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Dims, [Wayback/Archive] FastEthernet and [Wayback/Archive] bbearren)

Q

There are several tools to edit the BCD store, like bcdedit and Visual BCD Editor.

They are editing the so-called “BCD Store”. Where is it located physically?

  1. In filesystem (where)?
  2. On physical harddrive sectors (where)?
  3. On Flash ROM of computer?
  4. Somewhere else (where)?

A

Where is the BCD file located in the registry?

  • BIOS-based operating systems. The BCD registry file is located in the \Boot\Bcd directory of the active partition.
  • EFI–based operating systems. The BCD registry file is located on the EFI system partition.

Boot Configuration Data Editor Frequently Asked Questions

A

If you have multiple Windows OS’s on a UEFI/GPT system you have only one EFI partition. One BCD Store handles all Windows OS’s and it is in the EFI partition. There are separate entries in the BCD Store for every bootable OS.

Anyway, these are the steps how I solved it on this particular system:

Finding out the boot and ESP volumes, then adding a BCD entry

  1. On this “Automatic Repair” screen, choose “Advanced options”, then on the next screen “Command Prompt” to start cmd.exe.
  2. Investigation part
    1. Run “diskpart” to start the disk partitioning tool.
    2. Run the below list, select and detail commands to get details on my system:
      Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.22000.1]
(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

X:\windows\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.22000.1

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: MININT-OLQIMTE

DISKPART> list disk

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online         1863 GB  1024 KB        *
  Disk 1    Online         1863 GB   719 GB        *

DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail disk

Samsung SSD 970 EVO Plus 2TB
Disk ID: {7F4CB78A-4B22-49CD-D4BE-8CF6552F15C1}
Type   : RAID
Status : Online
Path   : 3
Target : 0
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1700)#RAID(P03T00L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only  : No
Boot Disk  : Yes
Pagefile Disk  : Yes
Hibernation File Disk  : No
Crashdump Disk  : Yes
Clustered Disk  : No

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 1     C   OS           NTFS   Partition    117 GB  Healthy    Boot
  Volume 2     D   DATA         NTFS   Partition   1023 GB  Healthy
  Volume 3         ESP          FAT32  Partition    650 MB  Healthy    System
  Volume 4     E                NTFS   Partition    579 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> select volume 3

Volume 3 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> detail volume

  Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
  --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
* Disk 1    Online         1863 GB   719 GB        *

Offline                : No

DISKPART> list part

  Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
  -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
* Partition 1    System             650 MB  1024 KB
  Partition 2    Reserved           128 MB   651 MB
  Partition 3    Primary            117 GB   779 MB
  Partition 4    Primary            579 GB   118 MB
  Partition 5    Primary           1023 GB   838 GB
  Partition 6    Recovery           579 MB  1862 GB

DISKPART> select partition 6

Partition 6 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> detail partition

Partition 6
Type    : de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac
Hidden  : Yes
Required: Yes
Attrib  : 0X8000000000000001
Offset in Bytes: 1999790669824

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 4     E                NTFS   Partition    579 MB  Healthy    Hidden

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> detail partition

Partition 1
Type    : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
Hidden  : Yes
Required: No
Attrib  : 0X8000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 1048576

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 3         ESP          FAT32  Partition    650 MB  Healthy    System

DISKPART> select partition 3

Partition 3 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> detail partition

Partition 3
Type    : ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7
Hidden  : No
Required: No
Attrib  : 0000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 816840704

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 1     C   OS           NTFS   Partition    117 GB  Healthy    Boot

DISKPART> exit

      Note:

      1. You have to start with list disk and you cannot perform list commands on other subjects unless you have performed a select on the encompassing subject (for a vdisk you have to first attach the corresponding .vhd/.vhdx file).
      2. The disk uses a GPT (GUID partition table). Most disks nowadays do as MBR (master boot record) partition tables are basically a thing of the past.
      3. Be aware there is a clear distinction between partitions and volumes:
        • A partition can have a partition type that does not correspond to a Windows manageable volume (the most obvious is type 0x00 (MBR partition type) or 00000000-0000-0000-0000-000000000000 (GUID partition type) which means “empty”), and sometimes (especially on floppy disks or virtual CD/DVD ISO or optical disk images) a volume can exist without a partition.
        • Volume numbering does not need to be in the same order as partition numbering (you see this above: there volume 3 is part of partition 1 and volume 1 is part of partition 3).
      4. I listed “partition 6” as that is the Recovery partition that was moved towards the end of the disk and wanted to know its status.
      5. On Windows, a volume can exist without a drive letter assignment. In my case this was the case for the ESP volume.

      So now I know that the Boot partition uses the C drive letter, and where the EFI System Partition is. So let’s use the Recovery environment to fix the BCD on the EFI System Partition.

  3. Modification part
    1. The start is to make the “volume 3” partition accessible by assigning a drive letter to it. If you do this in the existing WindowsRE session, then it will be ephemeral, i.e. lost during the next boot, which is a good thing, so let’s continue in a new diskpart session:
      DISKPART> select disk 1

Disk 1 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> select partition 1

Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

DISKPART> assign letter=F

DiskPart successfully assigned the drive letter or mount point.

DISKPART> detail partition

Partition 1
Type    : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b
Hidden  : Yes
Required: No
Attrib  : 0X8000000000000000
Offset in Bytes: 1048576

  Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
  ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
* Volume 3     F   ESP          FAT32  Partition    650 MB  Healthy    System

DISKPART> exit
    2. Now we can fix the BCD on the command prompt:

      `bcdboot C:\Windows` fixes the boot problem by specifying the drive letter

      F:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot>copy BCD BCD.bak
         1 file(s) copied.

F:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot>bcdboot C:\Windows
BFSVC Warning: Failed to forcibly unload the system store. Status = [c000000e]
Boot files successfully created.

      Note that (in retrospect) this did create a second BCD entry (that is set as default), not replace the existing one.

    3. Exit the cmd.exe and reboot

Booting and removing the faulty BCD entry

After booting, I was greeted with this boot screen:

The frustrating thing is that it does not mention the drive letter I specified in C:\Windows, but only Volume 3 which does not correspond to the boot volume but does correspond to the ESP  volume.

Since I now could at least boot into Windows, it was relatively straightforward to immediately fix it using msconfig. In retrospect (see below under “Future improvement”), I probably should have dug into bcdedit and try to do everything from the WindowsRE prompt.

Anyway: msconfig has a tab called boot where you can Delete an existing entry:

msconfig does show the boot location.

So I selected the one in blue (marked \WINDOWS) and clicked the Delete button.

Now the boot succeeded without the need to select a partition. Yay!

Future improvement

In the future, I should use bcdedit to:

  • investigate the current BCD settings
  • remove the original one after adding the correct one
  • use a better caption (bcdboot cannot do that)

That would have made it a command-line only solution within the WindowsRE environment.

I did some further research for what I need to attain that, and to directly edit BCD in the registry if I ever need that. I did not figure out all the exact steps yet, just collected the relevant links and abstracts then added them to the sections below.

It was hard getting to these steps, so below are lots of links and a Microsoft article archeology guideline

I’ll start with the archeology as over time, the Microsoft documentation sites have been part of a lot of migrations, the last one starting somewhere in 2015 as you can read in [Wayback/Archive] An Update on the MSDN and TechNet Migration to docs.microsoft.com | Microsoft Learn which describes the effort from the inception in 2015 to the migration results up to 2022.

The examples below are likely incomplete, but already cover some 20 years of history of technet and MSDN article number migration.

Easiest is to use the Wayback Machine as as Archive.is has both far less pages saved and no way to specify wildcards in the time portion of the URL.

These all refer to the same technet content over time:

And these to the same MSDN content over time does not keep the ID in tact which makes it much harder to track back from the current state to older versions:

I know of these starting combinations in IDs:

  • cc
  • gg
  • ff
  • dn

Comments and other community content had various different systems which you can see here:

  1. “Community Content” web.archive.org/web/20101219102119/http://technet.microsoft.com:80/en-us/library/cc709667(WS.10).aspx
  2. “Community Content” web.archive.org/web/20110221091536/http://technet.microsoft.com:80/en-us/library/cc709667(WS.10).aspx (layout update)
  3. “Community Additions” web.archive.org/web/20130304235710/http://technet.microsoft.com:80/en-us/library/cc709667(WS.10).aspx (removed the “Community Content”, at least in the Wayback Machine)
  4. web.archive.org/web/20160809073831/https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709667(v=ws.10).aspx (removed the “Community Additions”)
  5. web.archive.org/web/20190518194715/https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc709667(v=ws.10).aspx redirects to
  6. web.archive.org/web/20190518194717/https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/previous-versions/windows/it-pro/windows-vista/cc709667(v=ws.10) (new location)

The start of my investigation

  • [Wayback/Archive] “Automatic repair couldn’t repair your PC” – Microsoft Community (archived through Google Cache as Microsoft does not allow it to save in either in the Wayback Machine or in Archive.is) was the only one that almost literally had the path E:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt in it:

    I keep on getting this when i boot up my pc and i can’t seem to reset my pc whatsoever. I dont know what to do. Please help

    text:

    "Press "Advanced options" to try other options to repair your pc or "shut down" to turn off your PC.
    Log File:
    D:\Recovery\WindowsRE\Winre.wim\System32\Logfiles\Srt\SrtTrail.txt"

    The answer however was of no use:

    1. Use Startup repair: failed
    2. Uninstall Updates: no use as the original was a copy from a working install
    3. CHKDSK: succeeded
    4. Another try you can give to fix is SFC SCANNOW through Offboot switch.

      For this follow the steps below:

      First, find the Windows Install drive letter using BCDEDIT command.

      Then, try entering the following command:
      sfc /scannow /offbootdir=C:\ /offwindir=C:\Windows

      After the scan completes you would see the results.
      You can also try using DISM: dism /image:C:\ /cleanup-image /revertpendingactions

      no use as the original was a copy from a working install, but interesting is I did not know you could

    5. Reset this PC or clean install: no use as the original was a copy from a working install
  • [Wayback/Archive] Capture and Apply Windows, System, and Recovery Partitions | Microsoft Learn
    Configure the system partition by using the BCDBoot tool. This tool copies and configures system partition files by using files from the Windows partition. For example:
    W:\Windows\System32\bcdboot W:\Windows /s S:
  • [Wayback/Archive] Boot to a virtual hard disk: Add a VHDX or VHD to the boot menu | Microsoft Learn (using WinPE: Windows Preinstallation Environment which works in a similar way as

    Add a boot entry

    1. From your destination PC, open Diskpart (if necessary) and identify the drive letters of the VHDX and the system partition, for example, V and S. 
      diskpart
list volume
exit
    2. Add a boot entry to the device. You can add multiple VHDX files using this method.UEFI: 
      V:\
cd v:\windows\system32
bcdboot v:\windows /s S: /f UEFI

      BIOS:

      V:
cd v:\windows\system32
bcdboot v:\windows /s S: /f BIOS
    3. Remove the WinPE USB key.
    4. Restart the destination PC.If there’s only one boot entry, the device immediately boots to Windows. If there’s more than one boot entry, you’ll see a boot menu where you can choose between the available versions of Windows on the device.
  • [Wayback/Archive] Fixing Disk Signature Collisions | Microsoft Learn

    in this post, I’ll give you easy repair steps you can follow if you’ve got a system that won’t boot because of a disk signature collision. I’ll also explain where disk signatures are stored, how Windows uses them, and why a collision makes a Windows installation unbootable.

  • [Wayback/Archive] windows 7 – Why can’t I edit the system BCD store via regedit? – Super User (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Parmar and [Wayback/Archive] Synetech)

    Q

    if I try running regedit as an Administrator and manually editing any of the values in there, you get the error Cannot edit <value_name>: Error writing the value's new contents. Similarly, if the Windows API function RegSetValueEx tries changing values in this subkey, even when in an application that is running as an Administrator, it will also fail.
    Yet, the BCDEDIT command can insert, update and delete items from this store without issues and the changes will show up in the registry as well.
    What’s the difference between what BCDEDIT does and manually editing the registry?

    A

    …

    Since boot data is critical, Windows doesn’t make it easy to mess around in there. Using the registry editor to directly edit the boot data would make it possible to set invalid or conflicting values, add invalid or illegal entires, remove mandatory entries, etc. Limiting the modification of the BCD to bcdedit allows it restrict the changes to valid values which helps to limit the damage that can be done (it doesn’t completely eliminate problems; you can still kill a system, but at least it cuts out a big chunk of possible problems).

    …

    When you run Regedit (which requires elevated privileges), it runs under the context of your user-account and gets the administrator-group permissions, thus you cannot write to it. When you use the bcdedit command, it runs under the SYSTEM account context which has write permissions. If you enable the User Name column in the Task Manager, you can see that Regedit is run by your user account and bcdedit is run by SYSTEM.

    …

    An easier way is to simply run Regedit under the SYSTEM context.

    …

  • [Wayback/Archive] Error message when you start Windows 7: “The Windows Boot Configuration Data file is missing required information” (KB2004518) is still really insightful, but got removed, so here is a full quote:

    Symptoms

     When you start Windows 7, you receive the following error message:

    File: \Boot\BCD
    Status: 0xc0000034
    Info: The Windows Boot Configuration Data file is missing required information

    Cause

    This error occurs when either of the following conditions is true:

    • The Windows Boot Manager (Bootmgr) entry is not present in the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store.
    • The Boot\BCD file on the active partition is damaged or missing.
    The second bullet refers to the “active partition”, which means the partition identified by the Active bit set on the partition.  This is what identifies the ‘system partition’, or in other words, the partition where bootmgr and BCD store are located.

    Resolution

    To resolve this problem, use the following methods in the order in which they are presented.
    Method 1: Repair the BCD store by using the Startup Repair option
    You can use the Startup Repair option in the Windows Recovery Environment to repair the BCD store. To do this, follow these steps:
    1.  Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.
    2.  Press a key when you are prompted.
    3.  Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.
    4.  Click Repair your computer.
    5.  Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
    6.  In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Startup Repair.
    7.  Restart the computer.
    For more information on how Windows RE Works: http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/dd744291(WS.10).aspx
    Method 2: Rebuild the BCD store by using the Bootrec.exe tool
    If the previous method does not resolve the problem, you can rebuild the BCD store by using the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment.
    Determine the partition where \boot\bcd file is located.
    Notice that the boot\BCD file may not be on the C: partition but on a separate system partition.
    (OEM’s are unlikely to assign a volume letter to the system partition.)
    If the Bootrec.exe tool cannot locate any missing Windows installations, you must remove the BCD store, and then you must re-create it. To do this, type the following commands in the order in which they are presented. Press ENTER after each command.
    • Bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
    • ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
    • Bootrec /rebuildbcd
    In this recovery procedure, because we are in WinRE (which is based on WinPE), all the volumes, including the system partition are assigned drive letters.  The order of drive letter assignment may not be (or will not be) the same as how volume letters are assigned when Win7 is running.
    •  ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old
    Partition C: might not be the correct volume letter.  Here is what we have to do to obtain the correct active partition:
    If the Bootrec.exe tool cannot locate any missing Windows installations, you must remove the BCD store, and then you must re-create it.  Use the diskpart command to locate the volume letter for the system partition where the BCD store is located. To do this, follow these steps:
    • At the command prompt type the following commands in the order which they are presented:
        • c:\windows\system32> Diskpart
        • DISKPART> select disk 0
        • DISKPART> list partition
        • DISKPART> select partition 1
        • DISKPART> detail partition
    Sample output for example:
    Partition 1
    Type  : 07
    Hidden: No
    Active: Yes
    Offset in Bytes: 1048576
      Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
      ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
    * Volume 1     D    System Rese  NTFS   Partition    100 MB  Healthy    System
    The BCD store is located on the partition where the detail shows “Active : Yes”, and Info is “System”.  The partition may have a label “System Reserved”.   In this example, Volume 1 is the system partition and Windows has temporarily assigned the volume letter D.  If partition 1 is not marked Active, then select partition 2, and view the detail to see whether the next partition is Active and the Info is System. A partition with Info as “Boot”, is the partition where the \Windows directory is located.
    Partition 2
    Type  : 07
    Hidden: No
    Active: No
    Offset in Bytes: 105906176
      Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
      ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
    * Volume 2     C                NTFS   Partition    100 GB  Healthy    Boot
    On Windows Vista, one partition is typically used as both the System and Boot partitions and the \boot\BCD store is located on the same volume where the \Windows directory is located.  On Windows 7, separate partitions are used for the System and Boot partitions to make it easier to enable BitLocker Drive Encryption and to support computers that have UEFI firmware.
    • In the following commands, use the volume letter identified in the diskpart command for the system partition to remove the BCD store.  Type the following commands in the order in which they are presented. Press ENTER after each command.
    ·         Bcdedit /export C:\BCD_Backup
    ·         ren Partition:\boot\bcd bcd.old
    ·         Bootrec /rebuildbcd
    Note Partition represents the letter of the system partition
     Method 3: Rebuild the BCD store manually by using the Bcdedit.exe tool
    If the previous method does not resolve the problem, you can rebuild the BCD store manually by using the Bcdedit.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment.
    To do this, follow these steps:
    1.  Put the Windows 7 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.
    2.  Press a key when you are prompted.
    3.  Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.
    4.  Click Repair your computer.
    5.  Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
    6.  In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
    7.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    cd /d Partition:\Windows\System32
    Note Partition represents the letter of the partition on which Windows is installed. Typically, this is partition C. Use the diskpart commands described in Method 2 to determine the letter temporarily assigned to the partition on which Windows is installed.  The detailed partition information for that partition will show the Info as Boot.
    8.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    bcdedit /enum all
    In the Windows Boot Loader section of the output from this command, note the GUID that is listed for resumeobject. You will use this GUID later.
    9.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    bcdedit -create {bootmgr} -d "Description"
    Note Description represents the description for the new entry.
    10.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    bcdedit -set {bootmgr} device partition=Partition:
    Note Partition represents the letter of the partition. Typically, the letter is C.
    11.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    bcdedit /displayorder {GUID}
    Note GUID represents the GUID that you obtained in step 8.
    12.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    bcdedit /default {GUID}
    Note GUID represents the GUID that you obtained in step 8.
    13.  Type the following command, and then press ENTER:
    bcdedit /timeout Value
    Note Value represents the time in seconds before the Windows Boot Manager selects the default entry that you created in step 12.
    14.  Restart the computer.

    More Information

    For a Windows Vista version of this article see:
    Note This is a “FAST PUBLISH” article created directly from within the Microsoft support organization. The information contained herein is provided as-is in response to emerging issues. As a result of the speed in making it available, the materials may include typographical errors and may be revised at any time without notice. See Terms of Use for other considerations.
  • [Wayback/Archive] The Windows 7 / 8 / 10 BCD (Boot Configuration Data) Store and BCDEDIT Program has a truckload of notes, especially on disk signatures and on differences between bcdedit versions complete with example output.

    The above two links are part of a sub-tree around MBR as the site aims at describing as much information on master-boot records on various operating systems as possible (for instance [Wayback/Archive] Windows 7, 8 or 10 Master Boot Record (MBR)). If you are interested in that topic, start at [Wayback/Archive] Boot Records Revealed!

    All the Details of many versions of
    both     MBR (Master Boot Records)
    and OS Boot Sectors (also called:
    Volume Boot Records)

    Note however that the site has a lot of outgoing dead links, so it is often useful to start at a Wayback Machine copy as there these links are often archived.

Links to documentation

BCD

bootrec

Despite I didn’t use bootrec (and later learned it has been replaced by bootsect), a [Wayback/Archive] bootrec Search | Microsoft Learn revealed this truly insightful article: [Wayback/Archive] Windows boot issues troubleshooting – Windows Client | Microsoft Learn.

I wish it had gotten a more prominent result in my Google queries, and can only quote so many bits in this already long blog post, so be sure to read it in full and expand the image (which in large parts should have been converted to HTML tables).

Anyway:

  1. Summary

    There are several reasons why a Windows-based computer may have problems during startup. To troubleshoot boot problems, first determine in which of the following phases the computer gets stuck:
    Phase Boot Process BIOS UEFI
    1 PreBoot MBR/PBR (Bootstrap Code) UEFI Firmware
    2 Windows Boot Manager %SystemDrive%\bootmgr \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
    3 Windows OS Loader %SystemRoot%\system32\winload.exe %SystemRoot%\system32\winload.efi
    4 Windows NT OS Kernel %SystemRoot%\system32\ntoskrnl.exe
    1. PreBoot: The PC’s firmware initiates a power-on self test (POST) and loads firmware settings. This pre-boot process ends when a valid system disk is detected. Firmware reads the master boot record (MBR), and then starts Windows Boot Manager.
    2. Windows Boot Manager: Windows Boot Manager finds and starts the Windows loader (Winload.exe) on the Windows boot partition.
    3. Windows operating system loader: Essential drivers required to start the Windows kernel are loaded and the kernel starts to run.
    4. Windows NT OS Kernel: The kernel loads into memory the system registry hive and other drivers that are marked as BOOT_START.
      The kernel passes control to the session manager process (Smss.exe) which initializes the system session, and loads and starts the devices and drivers that aren’t marked BOOT_START.
    Here’s a summary of the boot sequence, what will be seen on the display, and typical boot problems at that point in the sequence. Before you start troubleshooting, you have to understand the outline of the boot process and display status to ensure that the issue is properly identified at the beginning of the engagement. Select the thumbnail to view it larger.
    Each phase has a different approach to troubleshooting. This article provides troubleshooting techniques for problems that occur during the first three phases.

The image is so important that I archived the high-resolution one at [Wayback/Archive] boot-sequence-thumb-expanded.png (1164×1035). It should be an HTML table, so maybe one day..

  1. Note
    If the computer repeatedly boots to the recovery options, run the following command at a command prompt to break the cycle:
    Bcdedit /set {default} recoveryenabled no
    If the F8 options don’t work, run the following command:
    Bcdedit /set {default} bootmenupolicy legacy

  2. Method 2: Repair boot codes

    To repair boot codes, run the following command:
    BOOTREC /FIXMBR
    To repair the boot sector, run the following command:
    BOOTREC /FIXBOOT
    Note
    Running BOOTREC together with Fixmbr overwrites only the master boot code. If the corruption in the MBR affects the partition table, running Fixmbr may not fix the problem.

  3. Method 3: Fix BCD errors

    If you receive BCD-related errors, follow these steps:
    1. Scan for all the systems that are installed. To do this step, run the following command:
      Bootrec /ScanOS
    2. Restart the computer to check whether the problem is fixed.
    3. If the problem isn’t fixed, run the following commands:
      bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

attrib c:\boot\bcd -r -s -h

ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

bootrec /rebuildbcd
    4. Restart the system.

The article continues with a few more types of fixes that are not applicable to the BCD so I left them out.

If bootrec had still existed in Windows 11, then Method 3: Fix BCD errors would likely have solved my problem.

bootsect

[Wayback/Archive] Bootsect Command-Line Options | Microsoft Learn is the replacement of bootrec. The most important parameter choices are these:

  • /nt52

    Applies the master boot code that is compatible with NTLDR to SYS, ALL, or <DriveLetter>. The operating system installed on SYS, ALL, or <DriveLetter> must be older than Windows Vista.

  • /nt60

    Applies the master boot code that is compatible with Bootmgr to SYS, ALL, or <DriveLetter>. The operating system installed on SYS, ALL, or <DriveLetter> must be Windows 8, Windows Server 2012, or newer.

The odd thing is that /nt60 does not mention “Windows Vista, Windows Server 2008 or newer”, as both these Windows NT releases are NT 6.0 (the series ended with NT 6.3 covering both Windows 8.1 and Windows Server 2012 R2, then NT 10.0 for Windows 10 and Windows Server 2016).

More options are in the article.

diskpart

I did not know about the last two possibilities. Learning things like that was a big plus from researching his problem!

bcdboot

Note: I wish bcdboot had a way to specify the caption of a boot entry as that made figuring out the boot prompt choice I had above a lot easier.

bcdedit

sfc

      • [Wayback/Archive] sfc | Microsoft Learn
        Scans and verifies the integrity of all protected system files and replaces incorrect versions with correct versions. If this command discovers that a protected file has been overwritten, it retrieves the correct version of the file from the systemroot\ folder, and then replaces the incorrect file.

        …

        /offwindir <offline windows directory> Specifies the location of the offline windows directory, for offline repair.
        /offbootdir <offline boot directory> Specifies the location of the offline boot directory for offline repair.
        /offlogfile= <log file path> Specifies a location to sto

        I did not know about the offline switches: useful!

      • The Dell documentation gives an example at [Wayback/Archive] How to run sfc /scannow from the Windows Recovery Environment (WinRE) | Dell Canada
        When running sfc /scannow in WinRE, two switches need to be added to the command in order to run it in offline mode:
        • /offbootdir=<disk> indicates the boot drive letter.
        • /offwindir=<folder> indicates the folder where Windows is installed.
        The following is an example of the command with these switches added:
        • sfc /scannow /offbootdir=D:\ /offwindir=D:\Windows

VHD booting

[Wayback/Archive] Windows 7 – VHD Boot – Setup Guideline | Microsoft Learn

Links other than Microsoft documentation

These were also helpful getting a grasp on various commands:

  • [Wayback/Archive] command line – Scripting with bcdedit – Stack Overflow (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Henrik Nielsen) on the handling GUIDs used inside the BCD within scripts.
  • [Wayback/Archive] Use EC2Rescue for Windows Server with the command line – Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (on collecting BCD related data)
  • [Wayback/Archive] NeoSmart: bootcfg – Guide for Windows XP (potentially interesting as Windows XP is not dead yet for system like industrial like ones).
  • [Wayback/Archive] NeoSmart: BCDEdit – Guide for Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10
  • [Wayback/Archive] Fix UEFI Boot: Fix for Windows 7, 8, 8.1, 10 has OK steps (but no explanation why they work) under Fix : Use diskpart.
  • [Wayback/Archive] How to Use the Advanced Startup Options to Fix Your Windows 8 or 10 PC has good screenshots on Advanced Startup Options on Windows 8 and 10: useful for people liking visual steps.
  • [Wayback/Archive] Fixed: the Selected Disk Is Not a Fixed MBR Disk (Guide 2022) explaining the below error (as a key difference between UEFI and MBR, and that GPT is a requirement for any disk larger than 2 Tebibyte which most hard disks are by now and many SSDs too).

    The ACTIVE command can only be used on fixed MBR disks.

    It is telling you that the ACTIVE command can only be used on fixed MBR disks – but what does this mean?To clear things up, the error occurs when you want to activate a partition on a UEFI System Partition. However, the active command only works when your system disk is MBR style, as UEFI has no concept of the active partition. So, for this reasons, the same error can occur if you use the INACTIVE command on UEFI/GPT system.

    Yup, I totally forgot about that.

    Note that a GPT disk *does* contain a Master Boot Record (see GUID Partition Table: MBR Variants – Wikipedia), which is the reason that bootrec /fixmbr still is needed to fix some classes of boot problems.

    I think that resources like this one and [Wayback/Archive] Fix: The Selected Disk is not a Fixed MBR Disk – Appuals.com do neither stress enough that converting GPT to MBR usually is not leading to a successful solution not explain the why in each step of the proposed solutions, like this order:

    bootrec /RebuildBcd
bootrec /fixMbr
bootrec /fixboot

    It also means that the solutions in [Wayback/Archive] Know How to Make Partition Bootable in Windows Using CMD OR Diskpart are of no use (besides diskpart running inside cmd, so there is no “OR”)

  • For the above reason, [Wayback/Archive] windows – Finding which partition on a particular disk is active from the command line – Super User (thanks [Wayback/Archive] Harry Johnston and [Wayback/Archive] Winter Faulk) fails for GPT disks but succeeds on MBR disks:
    do the following:
    diskpart.exe
select volume 1
detail partition
    The output will indicate
    Active: Yes/No
    For example: enter image description here
    You have to go through each volume to find which ones are Active and which ones are not. You can use Diskpart’s list volume command to show all volumes and find the one you want to check first.
  • [Wayback/Archive] How can I repair Windows 10 UEFI Normal Boot? – Super User didn’t get resolved, but did point me in the bcdboot direction (so thanks [Wayback/Archive] hockeykong and [Wayback/Archive] snayob) and confirmed why it was a good idea to finally learn about UEFI boot:
    1. Boot your Windows 10 DVD using UEFI boot (or disable CSM, so you cannot boot using boot records)
    2. Map EFI System on SSD to Z: using diskpart
    3. bcdboot c:\windows /s Z: /f UEFI
    assuming c: maps to Windows partition on SSD.
    Forget about unreliable bootrec – the main problem seems to be inability to find EFI System.
    Other problem you have – disable fastboot so Windows 10 does a full restart (and full shutdown)
    And … forget about MBR on UEFI (one of the main reasons for implementing EFI is to get rid of MBR and its limitations and problems)
  • [Wayback/Archive] How to Repair EFI/GPT Bootloader on Windows 10 or 11? | Windows OS Hub was basically the first link I found bringing all steps together. And it expplains the the bootrec steps would not work on my system (which I already expected, as I could not reason why my MBR would be broken):

    At this point, many guides recommend running the following commands, which should overwrite the partition boot record, find the installed Windows, and add them to the BCD:

    bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuildbcd

    or even:
    bootrec /FixMbr (preparing MBR record for a GPT disk looks strange)

    You can use all these commands only for MBR-based disks. If your computer boots in UEFI mode, then it definitely uses the GPT partition table (as in our case). Therefore, when you run bootrec commands, you will see an error:
    access is denied

    You need to use the BCDBoot.exe tool to restore bootloader files and fix the boot records on the EFI partition

    So definitely read this article to explain details I might have forgotten to include here. There are a ton of useful comments (the article even got changed a few times because of them) that go into some details more deeply.

  • [Wayback/Archive] How to Repair the EFI Bootloader on a GPT Hard Drive for Windows Operating Systems on your Dell Computer | Dell US gives better examples than the Microsoft documentation. Still wish they explained the *why* of the steps better.
  • [Wayback/Archive] grub – How to fix the Windows 10 boot loader from Windows – Super User which described why I have always been careful with multi-boot systems: fiddling with boot-loaders is always a pain and provides fixes for both BIOS/MBR and UEFI/GPT boot situations! (thanks [Wayback/Archive] devurandom, [Wayback/Archive] snayob, [Wayback/Archive] devurandom and [Wayback/Archive] Nathan2055)

    Q

    I installed Ubuntu on a system that has Windows 10 installed. I can boot to Windows or Ubuntu normally using GRUB. I want to delete Ubuntu partition, but first I must restore the Windows 10 MBR.

    In Use Bootrec.exe in the Windows RE to troubleshoot startup issues (applies to Windows 7 and Windows Vista) they say to use Bootrec.exe with options /FixMbr /FixBoot, but when I type “bootrec.exe /FixMbr” in a command prompt, Windows says:

    'bootrec.exe' is not recognized as an internal or external command.

    I say I can boot to Windows 10 and run a command prompt from there (I don’t need to use an installation medium), but I don’t know what to enter.

    A

    The command in Windows 8/8.1/10 for fixing MBR is “bootsect.exe”.

    bootsect /nt60 drive_letter: /mbr

    this fixes boot record of partition mapped to “drive_letter:” and the MBR of the disk where the partition is placed.

    C:\Windows\system32>bootsect

bootsect {/help|/nt60|/nt52} {SYS|ALL|<DriveLetter>:} [/force] [/mbr]

Boot sector restoration tool

Bootsect.exe updates the master boot code for hard disk partitions in order to
switch between BOOTMGR and NTLDR.  You can use this tool to restore the boot
sector on your computer.

Run "bootsect /help" for detailed usage instructions.

    Alternatively you can use “Dual-boot Repair Tool” which has a graphical interface to bcdboot.exe, bootsect.exe and other useful functions like boot sector view and … one click dual-boot repair function for Windows 10/8/7/Vista (also can fix Windows XP boot files).

    C

    The hint towards bcdboot was immensely helpful. Thank you! During a disk crash, my EFI system partition got destroyed. I recreated the files necessary to start my Linux system, but was not able to recover the Windows installation. Using bcdboot to copy the Windows boot files into it fixed it.

    A

    The other answers given here work great on MBR/BIOS systems, however if you’re on a UEFI system like I am, bootsect will just write a semi-functional boot MBR over the GPT protective MBR and bootrec just gives an “Access denied” error message, and neither one has a functional option to fix a broken EFI system partition, which on a UEFI/GPT drive is what contains the bootloader that used to be stored in the MBR. There’s unfortunately almost no up-to-date guides on fixing the UEFI Windows Boot Manager (almost all of them just say to run the graphical Startup Repair utility, but that doesn’t fix the problem in all cases), but I finally found the correct solution buried in this article, which requires the use of the bcdboot command instead:

    1. Grab the Media Creation Tool, make yourself a Windows 10 installation DVD or USB drive, and then boot into it.
    2. When prompted, choose “Repair your computer”, followed by “Troubleshoot”, “Advanced Options”, and finally “Command Prompt”.
    3. Run diskpart and then list volume. Note the volume number for your EFI system partition (ESP).
    4. Now do select volume x (where x is the volume number for the ESP) and then assign letter=N: to mount the partition. Run list volume again and note that the ESP is now assigned a driver letter. Run exit to leave diskpart.
    5. (Optional) If you are not currently dual booting and want to fully clean the ESP before writing a new bootloader, run format N: /FS:FAT32 to reformat it as FAT32. This is probably not necessary under normal circumstances, however, as bcdboot seems to do a good job of cleaning things up itself. Especially do not do this if you have a Linux distro on another partition or else you’ll have to reinstall GRUB as well once you’re done with this. Also note that the following steps should not affect an EFI GRUB install as long as you do not otherwise delete GRUB’s existing directory on the ESP.
    6. Finally, write the new bootloader to the partition with bcdboot C:\windows /s N: /f UEFI. This command rebuilds a new UEFI-compatible bootloader on the ESP mounted at N: using the Windows installation mounted at C:\windows. Once it’s done, you can verify the new bootloader was written by running dir N:\EFI, where you should see a Microsoft directory containing the new Windows Boot Manager as well as a boot directory containing the fallback bootloader (along with other directories for any other bootloaders you have installed, such as GRUB for Linux).
    7. (Optional) If you are dual booting, you will probably need to boot into your Linux distro and run sudo update-grub to allow the GRUB scripts to detect and add the new Windows bootloader. You should also skip the next step and leave GRUB as your first boot choice so you can access both operating systems.
    8. Now boot into your BIOS setup and make sure “Windows Boot Manager” is set as the top boot choice. Save and reboot and you’ll finally be back in Windows.

    Especially the last answer is golden and basically describes in detail why my fix above works.

    Oh:

  • [Wayback/Archive] UEFI dual boot 2x WIN 10 Pro failing Solved – Page 2 – Windows 10 Forums motivated me to ignore the BFSVC Warning: Failed to forcibly unload the system store. Status = [c000000e] and just reboot; it also confirmed me why hesitation to do multi-boot systems:

    if you are dual booting Windows 10, it is a very good idea to disable hibernation on both Windows installs:

    powercfg -h off

    The hiberfil.sys file created by enabling hibernation and, thus, Winodws 10 fast startup can interfere with dual booting.

Editing the BCD in the registry

I have not don this yet, and likely never will as regular BCD editing tools will take care of almost all of the bit fiddling in the BCD registry. They also make the transition to the LocalSystem user (.\SYSTEM usually displayed as NT Authority\System).

There are only rare circumstances where they have not enough power which usually has to do with disk signatures of byte-cloned disks. In that case the MBR of the cloned disk will contain the disk signature of the original disk. If both are in the same system that imposes a problem, as BCD is (despite the tools based on drive letters) is based on disk signatures.

Running as LocalSystem user

These links explain this and can be of help fixing such a situation:

  • [Wayback/Archive] How to Run a Program as SYSTEM (LocalSystem) Account in Windows » Winhelponline

    To start the Registry Editor under the SYSTEM account, type the following command, and press ENTER:

    d:\tools\psexec.exe -sid c:\windows\regedit.exe
    regedit.exe psexec start as local system account
    The above PsExec command-line starts the Registry Editor under LOCALSYSTEM account so that you can modify protected areas in the registry.

    This is equivalent to running

    psexec.exe -s -i -d c:\windows\regedit.exe

    Where this is the meaning of the parameters:

    • -s run as LocalSystem
    • -i allow interaction with the desktop
    • -d don’t wait for the process to exit

    Note that PsExec requires UAC elevated permissions to perform the above action.

  • [Wayback/Archive] windows services – How do you run CMD.exe under the Local System Account? – Stack Overflow shows running as LocalSystem interactively has become a lot harder since the introduction of Windows Vista (under XP and below, many services ran as LocalSystem and could interact with the desktop: a bad combination from a security point of view):

    Q

    I found information online which suggests lauching the CMD.exe using the DOS Task Scheduler AT command, but I received a Vista warning that “due to security enhancements, this task will run at the time excepted but not interactively.” Here’s a sample command:
    AT 12:00 /interactive cmd.exe
    Another solution suggested creating a secondary Windows Service via the Service Control (sc.exe) which merely launches CMD.exe.
    C:\sc create RunCMDAsLSA binpath= "cmd" type=own type=interact
C:\sc start RunCMDAsLSA
    In this case the service fails to start and results it the following error message:
    FAILED 1053: The service did not respond to the start or control request in a timely fashion.

    A

    I came across this article which demonstrates the use of PSTools from SysInternals (which was acquired by Microsoft in July, 2006.) I launched the command line via the following and suddenly I was running under the Local Admin Account like magic:
    psexec -i -s cmd.exe
    PSTools works well. It’s a lightweight, well-documented set of tools which provides an appropriate solution to my problem.

    C

    I like this better with -d added, so that I can continue to use the console I launched it from.

    A

    1. Download psexec.exe from Sysinternals.
    2. Place it in your C:\ drive.
    3. Logon as a standard or admin user and use the following command: cd \. This places you in the root directory of your drive, where psexec is located.
    4. Use the following command: psexec -i -s cmd.exe where -i is for interactive and -s is for system account.
    5. When the command completes, a cmd shell will be launched. Type whoami; it will say ‘system”
    6. Open taskmanager. Kill explorer.exe.
    7. From an elevated command shell type start explorer.exe.
    8. When explorer is launched notice the name “system” in start menu bar. Now you can delete some files in system32 directory which as admin you can’t delete or as admin you would have to try hard to change permissions to delete those files.

    (actually whoami shows NT Authority\System)

    C

    To allow interactive services for Server 2012, HKLM\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\Windows\NoInteractiveServices need to set as 0 (Default 1) MSDN: Interactive services

    Thanks [Wayback/Archive] Ben Griswold, [Wayback/Archive] SamB, [Wayback/Archive] raven and [Wayback/Archive] Ivan Chau.

  • [Wayback/Archive] Running a CMD prompt as System (XP/Vista/Win7/Win8) « The Realm of the Verbal Processor
  • [Wayback/Archive] Sysinternals – Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn
    • [Wayback/Archive] PsExec – Sysinternals | Microsoft Learn with this subset of parameters

      …

      Parameter Description
      -d Don’t wait for process to terminate (non-interactive).
      -i Run the program so that it interacts with the desktop of the specified session on the remote system. If no session is specified the process runs in the console session. This flag is required when attempting to run console applications interactively (with redirected standard IO).
      -s Run the remote process in the System account.

      …
      Run Regedit interactively in the System account to view the contents of the SAM and SECURITY keys:

      psexec -i -d -s c:\windows\regedit.exe

      …

      PsExec is part of a growing kit of Sysinternals command-line tools that aid in the administration of local and remote systems named PsTools.

    • [Wayback] download.sysinternals.com/files/PSTools.zip contains PsExec.exe.
  • [Wayback/Archive] LocalSystem Account – Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn
  • [Wayback/Archive] Interactive Services – Win32 apps | Microsoft Learn
    Services running in an elevated security context, such as the LocalSystem account, should not create a window on the interactive desktop because any other application that is running on the interactive desktop can interact with this window. This exposes the service to any application that a logged-on user executes. Also, services that are running as LocalSystem should not access the interactive desktop by calling the OpenWindowStation or GetThreadDesktop function.

Note that running as LocalSystem can be extremely dangerous as it is the highest security level on your computer (that’s why viruses and trojans usually try to reach to run at this security level). In fact running as it basically makes you appear as your computer, even to other parts of the network. This can be even worse in a network with domain based security.

Queries

Some of the Google Search queries I used (I forgot to save all of them while figuring out the above solution) are below.

Note the ones about diskpart boot flag in various forms showing that I still had to get my mindset from MBR into GPT.

Image search: [Wayback/Archive] Automatic Repair Automatic Repair couldn’t repair your PC Press “Advanced options” to try other options to repair your PC or “Shut down to turn off your PC. “WindowsRE” – Google Search

Tweets

I summarised the above in a short [Wayback/Archive] Thread by @jpluimers on Thread Reader App which started at [Wayback/Archive] Jeroen Wiert Pluimers @wiert@mastodon.social on Twitter: “Dang. Didn’t know that bootcfg would add another boot entry instead of overwriting the current one. Also: I added the top one as C:\Windows, so why does the boot manager not show that anywhere?”.

The response to try out EasyBCD looks interesting. Not for this case (where I needed to solve it from the WindowsRE session), but in case I ever want to create a multi-boot system to test various operating systems on real hardware instead of virtualised hardware:

[Wayback/Archive] Meik Tranel on Twitter: “@jpluimers Drive letters are local to your boot, you can rename different boot options if you really intended for two different boots, but the MBR has no concept of disks or drive letters. It just lists entries that themselves have references to disks. I always use EasyBCD.”

–jeroen

This entry was posted on 2025/08/22 at 12:00 and is filed under Development, History, link rot, Power User, Software Archeology, Software Development, Windows, Windows 10, Windows 11, Windows Server 2003, Windows Server 2008, Windows Vista, Windows XP, WWW - the World Wide Web of information. Tagged: . You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Leave a comment

This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Learn how your comment data is processed.

«
»