New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

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ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by ohaya »

Hi,

I decided that I wanted to add a Windows 10 instance to one of my desktop machines. That machine has a bunch of drives and had BING, and so I disconnected as many as I could, ending up with 4 drives:

Drive 0: 64GB SSD (yes it is that old) - had Window 7 and BING
Drive 1: 2TB drive - had several partitions, including 1 partition with a 2nd Windows 7 (this was supposed to be my backup Windows 7)
Drive 2: 2TB drive - Several partitions with data
Drive 3: 2TB drive - Several partitions with data

The BING was set for > 4 partitions enabled.

The MOBO is an ASUS desktop MB.

I resized one of the partitions on Drive 1 to make a 100GB area named "Win10Pro", then I made an NTFS partition (not formatted since BING doesn't format NTFS). My intention was to put the Windows 10 in this partition.

In BING I created a new boot item name "Win10Pro", and only had 1 partition, the "Win10Pro" one. I set the boot item for one-time SWAP.

Then, I did resume and selected the "Win10Pro" and booted to it. It gave me the error that nothing to boot, and I did Ctrl-Alt-Del.

The machine booted and I hit space to get it to boot the Win10 install CD.

I went through the install, selecting the 100GB partition. I noted that the other partitions were showing as unallocated space. That kind of worried me, but I went ahead with the install.

After the install finished, I think I reactivated BING, and when I started BING, it said there was some overlap error.

When I looked, it had the original Windows partition on Drive 0, but it also made a small (534MB?) partition and both the Windows and that small partition showed as "E".

I didn't know what else to do, so I deleted the small partition and then the error on the Drive 0 Windows partition no longer showed "E".

However, after that, if I boot to BING:

If I try to boot the Drive 0 Windows 7 partition - it says no BCD.
If I try to boot the Drive 1 Windows 10 partition - it says no BCD
If I try to boot the Drive 1 Windows 7 partition, that boots ok !!

So how can I fix the Drive 0 Windows 7 and the Drive 1 Windows 10?

Is there a way that I can manually copy the boot files from drive 1 Windows 7 to the drive 0 Windows 7?

What about the Windows 10? Can I copy the boot files from the install DVD to the Windows 10?

If it is possible, I would rather do that, as I worried if I try using recovery that might mess up the wrong partition...

Thanks,
Jim
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by ohaya »

Hi,

Oh, I forgot one other thing. The first time I tried the install and booted to the DVD, the Windows installer said the drive was UEFI and I needed to make a GPT partition, which kind of puzzled me because I thought that I had setup the machine for legacy long time ago.

So I rebooted, and went into BIOS and checked the configuration and noted that some of the configuration options I had chosen a long time ago were like use UEFI if possible instead of definitely use legacy. So I changed those and then the installer would let me install.
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by Bob Coleman »

I don't know how to fix it.

I think you said the boot item in effect while installing contained only one partition allowing the installation to treat everything else as unallocated.

I don't fully understand exactly what happens, but my experience is that a Win10 installation is apt to create new partitions in "unallocated space".

I've been successful avoiding this by insuring that the boot item effective during the installation has something defined on all 4 MBR slots, so I think I might have been able to tell you how avoid what happened, but I can't tell you how to fix it without restoring everything and starting over.
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by ohaya »

Yeah that (the unallocated partitions) worried me - I guess I should've backed off, but too late now.

FYI, those spaces were actually not unallocated, but I had removed them from the boot edit menu, thinking that I did not want the installer to see them. So are you saying that I SHOULD HAVE included them in the boot menu?

If so, I can try re-install Win10 again but this time include all the partitions.

Jim
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by ohaya »

Agh... I decided to try to re-install Win10, but now, the installer is saying "We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing one" :(!!
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by Brian K »

ohaya wrote:
> Agh... I decided to try to re-install Win10, but now, the installer is
> saying "We couldn't create a new partition or locate an existing
> one" :(!!

Jim,

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=339

I prefer Method 1.
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by ohaya »

I think that problem is because of this: https://blogs.msdn.microsoft.com/oldnew ... 0/?p=98055 (apparently a bug in the Win10 installer).

Anyway, after > 3 install tries, I chickened out and just wiped the Windows 7 installation off of drive 0 and installed Windows 10 to take the entire drive.

The backup Windows 7 instance on drive 1 still works so I setup a boot menu item for that.

The drive 0 is like an ancient 60GB (?) SSD, so no room for more than 1 OS.

Thanks,
Jim
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by Bob Coleman »

ohaya wrote:

> FYI, those spaces were actually not unallocated, but I had removed them
> from the boot edit menu, thinking that I did not want the installer to see
> them. So are you saying that I SHOULD HAVE included them in the boot menu?
>
I could be wrong, but I think so. The installation might possibly still steal some space from one of the partitions, but at least it would know they were partitions and probably wouldn't completely screw them up.

I usually create small, otherwise useless partitions to fill the boot item slots. That way the installation seems to think that the maximum allowable number of partitions (4) already exist and that the small ones aren't big enough to steal any space from.
DrTeeth
Posts: 1289
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 6:58 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by DrTeeth »

On Sun, 29 Jul 2018 15:02:52 EDT, just as I was about to take a herb,
Bob Coleman disturbed my reverie and wrote:

>I usually create small, otherwise useless partitions to fill the boot item slots. That way the installation seems to think that the maximum allowable number of partitions (4) already exist and that the small ones aren't big enough to steal any space from.

What a very good idea! Windows' installers are unpredictably
anarchical and have a lot of chutzpah in their dealings with
partitions during an install. I always empty the MBRs rather than just
hiding the partitions. I always create a partition that is formatted
to NTFS before the install and direct the install there. Seems to
work...more often than not ;-).
--
Cheers,

DrT

"If you want to find out what is wrong
with democracy, spend five minutes with
the average voter". - Winston Churchill
ohaya
Posts: 229
Joined: Fri Jan 06, 2012 11:40 pm

Re: New Windows 10 install cannot boot (no BCD)

Post by ohaya »

Thanks. I really think that I should have done that (create and format partitions to fill all space on the drive).
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