Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

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Ambertus
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:06 am

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by Ambertus »

Hi, Brian! Thanks for bearing with me!

This post is, I'm afraid, going to be annoyingly long ( :oops: ), but I'm gonna try to keep this post from being TOO disorganized, but I probably won't succeed entirely, because I've tried a few different things and it's confusing even to myself...

I think it will be helpful to define some nomenclature. Instead of numbering the SSDs, I'll identify them by manufacturer. The Samsung SSD has a capacity of approx 112 GB. The Samsung consists of exactly two partitions: An empty 31 MB FAT16 partition which will eventually contain BIBM but doesn't yet, and the entire remainder of the SSD, 111.8 GB, containing the new 64-bit Win 10 Pro 1809 system partition. There is no unallocated space on it. It is NOT in EMBR format, just normal MBR.

The Crucial SSD has a bit more than twice the capacity of the Samsung. It contains exactly three partitions, in the following order: The BIBM partition, a 64-bit Windows 7 Pro system partition, then a 64-bit Windows 10 1703 partition. There is no unallocated space on this SSD either. The Crucial SSD IS an EMBR disk.

Recent History Part 1: Until today, I was continually able to successfully boot into the new Win 10 system on the Samsung SSD. Note that I was ONLY able to boot into the new Win 10 AS LONG AS the Crucial SSD came FIRST in the BIOS boot order. If I set the BIOS boot order such that the Samsung came first, it would NEVER boot correctly; I would get an error message to the effect that no operating system could be found.

I do not understand why this boot order is necessary, but VERY weirdly, if I boot into the Win 7 system on the Crucial, a lot of things don't work correctly! :o For example, many applications -- both 32-bit and 64-bit -- simply will not launch. I'll double-click them, and NOTHING happens. If I navigate to the application's location, select it then right-click, the context menu will NOT show "Run as administrator" or otherwise indicate that the system knows it's an application. How bizarre is that? The control panels will work, and if I double-click "Computer", that will work normally also. WTF??

As a completely wild guess, perhaps the Windows 10 1809 installation process clobbered something in that partition, maybe like a boot manager thingie, which is why it is absolutely necessary that the Crucial SSD comes first in the boot order if I'm going to successfully boot the new Win 10. Bob only knows!


This is the right time to talk about the system's BIOS. The mobo is an ASUS Z87-A, and it has the most recent BIOS firmware (which is now about 3 years old or so). In the Boot section of the BIOS settings, here are the relevant menu items and how I have them set.

Fast Boot and Hardware Fast Boot are DISABLED.

I have Launch CSM Enabled, and here is how the sub-items are set:
(1) Boot Device Control: Legacy OPROM only
(2) Boot from Network Devices: Ignore
(3) Boot from Storage Devices: Legacy OPROM first
(4) Boot from PCI-E/PCI Expansion Devices: Legacy OPROM first

The above CSM settings mandate that I have Secure Boot set to "Other OS" (the other option is Windows UEFI).

But now we come to something that I think may be EXTREMELY important to understanding why this situation is so fu/cked up: In the "Hard Drive BBS Priorities" (aka Boot Order), for the first time I can recall ever seeing this, there's an entry labeled "Windows Boot Manager", as if that's a separate hard drive! I suppose it's possible that it's been there before and I simply didn't notice it, but I don't think so: I think this never appeared prior to installing 1809 (as opposed to earlier releases of Windows 10).

...

Sorry, Brian. I suffer from a couple of chronic diseases, and one of them just hit me hard. I have to stop posting for today. Let me just briefly say that today I remved EVERY other storage device except for a completely unformatted 500 GB disk drive and the Win 10 1809 installation flash drive. The install was successful, but again there was no C:\Boot folder created and instead the BCD was created under C:\Windows\Boot

G'night.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by Brian K »

Ambertus wrote:

> Recent History Part 1: Until today, I was continually able to successfully
> boot into the new Win 10 system on the Samsung SSD. Note that I was ONLY
> able to boot into the new Win 10 AS LONG AS the Crucial SSD came FIRST in
> the BIOS boot order.

Do you have the Swap option enabled for the new Win10 1809 Boot Item?

https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=339
Ambertus
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:06 am

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by Ambertus »

Hi, Brian. Yes, I always enable the Swap option for every bootable partition on all disks.

I suspect that the most relevant and crucial aspect of this whole nightmare is that BIBM doesn't appear to handle non-UEFI Win 10, or at least release1809, installations completely correctly, where the BCD store is NOT located in C:\Boot\BCD but somewhere else. Microsoft's documentation on the Windows 10 BCD sucks badly because everything -- and I mean EVERYTHING -- I could find on the topic deals exclusively with UEFI booting, in which the BCD store is located in a special UEFI partition. No such UEFI partition exists on ANY of my drives, SSDs or traditional magnetic hard drives.

I've done some more research and learned that the "Windows Boot Manager" entry I only started seeing with Win 10 1809 is also directly related to UEFI booting. Microsoft apparently expects and possibly even DEMANDS that everyone use UEFI on ANY computer with a UEFI-compatible BIOS. Installing Windows 10 (at least 1809) forcibly shoves that "Windows Boot Manager" crap into some special BIOS NVRAM location somewhere.

Also, I've made several full partition clone copies of the formerly completely functional Win 10 1809 partition onto other HDDs, and I've confirmed that not a single one of them has a BCD in the Boot folder of their root folders. NOT A ONE! Which explains why if I boot into BIBM anywhere, including from the installation flash drive, and enter Partition Work and then examine ANY of those Win 10 1809 partitions, it ALWAYS reports that NONE of them have a BCD store. I strongly feel that is the key takeaway from all this!!!

Currently, whenever I try to boot up ANY Win 10 system partitions, I ALWAYS get the fatal error message: "Operating system not found". And all attempts to rebuild or create a new BCD from scratch on any of these Win 10 partitions fail in one command or other, even when I attempt to create a new BCD by first creating the /Boot folder on the parition's root then using the "BCDedit /create" commands. Also, the command "Bootrec /FixMBR" also always fails with the error message "access denied".

This is a nightmare!!!
Bob Coleman
Posts: 785
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 5:58 pm

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by Bob Coleman »

I don't understand most of what's happening here, but I can state that "Microsoft apparently expects and possibly even DEMANDS that everyone use UEFI on ANY computer with a UEFI-compatible BIOS" doesn't seem to be correct.

I have a UEFI-compatible BIOS, but am using Windows 10 and legacy booting on an EMBR disk.
Brian K
Posts: 2214
Joined: Fri Aug 12, 2011 1:11 am
Location: NSW, Australia

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by Brian K »

Ambertus wrote:
> Yes, I always enable the Swap option for every bootable
> partition on all disks.
>
Are you sure? Swap should not be enabled on the HD containing BIBM.


> I suspect that the most relevant and crucial aspect of this whole nightmare
> is that BIBM doesn't appear to handle non-UEFI Win 10, or at least
> release1809, installations completely correctly, where the BCD store is NOT
> located in C:\Boot\BCD but somewhere else.

I have a fresh Win10 1809 installation on a MBR disk and the BCD store is in C:\Boot.


>
>, and I've
> confirmed that not a single one of them has a BCD in the Boot folder of
> their root folders. NOT A ONE!

I have two MBR 1809 installations and they are both fine. What are we doing differently? You aren't installing Win10 1809 by this method...

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

Create the partition on the alternate HD, create the Boot Item, attempt to boot the Boot Item, remove the other HDs and install the alternate HD on HD0 SATA port, boot Win10 installation media. (Method 1)
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by TeraByte Support »

Fix Swap option is needed for some systems for swap to work.

"Brian K" wrote in message news:16112@public.bootitbm...

Ambertus wrote:
> Yes, I always enable the Swap option for every bootable
> partition on all disks.
>
Are you sure? Swap should not be enabled on the HD containing BIBM.



Ambertus
Posts: 55
Joined: Thu Feb 14, 2013 6:06 am

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by Ambertus »

Hi, Brian - Good news: I can once again boot into the main new Win 10 1809 system on the Samsung SSD, and it is first in the boot order. But I haven't installed BIBM on that drive yet. I'll explain what I did to get it working again in my response below...

Brian K wrote:
> Ambertus wrote:
> > Yes, I always enable the Swap option for every bootable
> > partition on all disks.
> >
> Are you sure? Swap should not be enabled on the HD containing BIBM.
>

WOW! That is extremely critical information that I, in my ignorance, simply did not know until right now!

But, yes, I had Swap enabled on all storage devices containing BIBM. A key Pilot Error on my part. Thanks!

>
> > I suspect that the most relevant and crucial aspect of this whole nightmare
> > is that BIBM doesn't appear to handle non-UEFI Win 10, or at least
> > release1809, installations completely correctly, where the BCD store is NOT
> > located in C:\Boot\BCD but somewhere else.
>
> I have a fresh Win10 1809 installation on a MBR disk and the BCD store is in C:\Boot.
>
>
> >
> >, and I've
> > confirmed that not a single one of them has a BCD in the Boot folder of
> > their root folders. NOT A ONE!
>
> I have two MBR 1809 installations and they are both fine. What are we doing
> differently? You aren't installing Win10 1809 by this method...
>
> https://www.terabyteunlimited.com/kb/article.php?id=339
>
No, I didn't do it that way, and I don't think I ever have. What I INTENDED to do back in mid-November was what I eventually did later. My plan was to disconnect ALL storage devices except the Samsung SSD and the Win 10 1809 installation flash drive and then use the second Windows 10 installation option to install Win 10 from total scratch. But because the second SSD (the Crucial) is installed within the computer case and can't be seen unless you remove a side panel, I inadvertently left it connected during that initial install. I don't recall the boot order in the BIOS at that time, but as I wrote earlier, for whatever reason, the Windows installer decided to store at least some of the necessary boot files somewhere on the Crucial SSD. Which is why I could ONLY boot correctly into the new Win 10 on the Samsung IF and ONLY IF the Crucial SSD came first in the boot order, followed by the Samsung SSD.

More recently, I began a new install from scratch after properly disconnecting ALL storage devices except for a single, unformatted 500 GB standard hard drive (and of course the installation flash drive). There were NO SSDs connected at all. This succeeded and booted correctly every time. BUT when I examined the drive with a partition manager later, I discovered an EXTREMELY important fact: Although as Ive reported several times now that there was NO C:\Boot folder created (and hence the BCD had to be somewhere else), the new correctly booting disk has a hidden NTFS partition at the start of the drive labeled "System Reserved" and THERE was the \Boot folder AND the BCD store was created within!! BINGO!

So this is what I did that allowed me to boot Win 10 1809 on the Samsung SSD again:

(1) Use a partition manager to reduce the size of the Samsung's Win 10 system partition by about 516 MB.

(2) Used DD 12.5 to move the Win 10 partition further down the drive to place the 516 MB unallocated space at the front of the Samsung SSD.

(3) Used DD 12.5 to copy the 500 MB "System Reserved" partition from the start of the 500 GB hard drive to the start of the Samsung SSD (leaving 16 MB for possible eventual use to contain BIBM).

(4) Booted up an old Win 7 system partition on a backup disk from another ASUS Z87-A computer.

(5) Used EasyBCD v2.4 to examine the BCD Store on the newly copied "System Reserved" partition

(6) Edited that BCD to correct the boot drive and so forth to boot from the Win 10 partition.

(7) Disconnected the 500 GB hard drive from the system, set the Samsung SSD first in the BIOS boot order, and booted up.

(8) Sigh: Failure - No Operating System Found again!

(9) Purchase and download the Home edition of Easy Recovery Essentials for Windows 10, wrote it to a spare flash drive, and booted into it.

(10) I chose the Automatic Repair option, let it finish, and tried to boot into the Samsung SSD Win 10 system.

(11) Success!! Finally!!

I have not installed BIBM on the Samsung SSD, and I'm not going to keep pressing my luck by trying again for a while, that's for sure! I've got far too much stuff to do until after Christmas.

However, for the hell of it, I cloned the Samsung SSD onto a spare hard drive, complete with "System Reserved" partition, 16 MB of unallocated space for BIBM, and the remainder of that SSD, the Win 10 system partition. Then I put it first in the boot order, booted into the BIBM v1.52 installation flash drive, installed BIBM into that 16 MB space, and rebooted (with the cloned hard drive first in the BIOS boot order).

Once into BIBM, I entered into Partition Work, and selected the "System Reserved" partition, and pressed the BCD Edit button. It once again proclaimed that there was NO BCD Store. So I selected the Win 10 system partition and pressed the BCD Edit button again. And once more: NO BCD STORE!!

Ah, well. When II get the chance, I'll try disabling the Swap option and see what happens. But not until after Christmas!

So put this thread aside until I post a new response after Xmas, and Enjoy your Holidays, kind and respected Brian K! :)
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by TeraByte Support »

Highlight the partition, click edit file to look around at what files and
directories exists/shows.


"Ambertus" wrote in message news:16119@public.bootitbm...

Once into BIBM, I entered into Partition Work, and selected the "System
Reserved" partition, and pressed the BCD Edit button. It once again
proclaimed that there was NO BCD Store. So I selected the Win 10 system
partition and pressed the BCD Edit button again. And once more: NO BCD
STORE!!

Ah, well. When II get the chance, I'll try disabling the Swap option and see
what happens. But not until after Christmas!

So put this thread aside until I post a new response after Xmas, and Enjoy
your Holidays, kind and respected Brian K!

![:)]({SMILIES_PATH}/icon_e_smile.gif)


sigi
Posts: 243
Joined: Sun Jan 15, 2012 1:59 am

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by sigi »

Ambertus wrote:
>
>
> I suspect that the most relevant and crucial aspect of this whole nightmare
> is that BIBM doesn't appear to handle non-UEFI Win 10 ...
>
>

Ambertus,
I am sorry that I cannot actively participate in this thread. But I have gone through many of your problems on an UEFI notebook with pre-installed Win 8.1 (which I changed to Win 10 with the help of this forum) and would like to draw your attention to my relevant thread ("Creating Multi-Boot 64-Bit Win7, Win8, LinuxMint on SSD+HDD") where I finally arrived at a functioning system (with BIOS). See > viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1928 and the related Thread "Converting BIBM-non recognized GPT disk to MBR with TBOSDTS" viewtopic.php?f=2&t=1997.
TeraByte Support
Posts: 3598
Joined: Thu May 05, 2011 10:37 pm

Re: Please help me solve new BIBM/Win 10 Install Weirdness?

Post by TeraByte Support »

and FWIW, swap only works with BIOS, not UEFI.



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