Windows 10: bcdedit - now unable to boot windows

My system was in a forever cycle of just booting to the 'troubleshooting' screen or I think it's called advanced boot options. It would never boot to windows 10. This happened after some tool requested to set to 'safe mode'. So I tried to fix it but alas very incorrectly and now it is only booting just beyond bios and doing this forever. Here's what I changed:

bcdedit /set {default} path \Windows\system32\winload.efi (it was formerly winload.exe)

Suggestions much appreciated on how to recover back to normal.
Thanks

:)

 

change dual boot menu language

In a dual boot machine I have installed windows 10 greek after windows 10 english. Now, when I use bcdedit to display boot menu I see it in greek. Is there a bcdedit command to get back the english edition?

 

Drive where Windows is installed is locked. - BCDEdit, Refresh, and other functions from Troubleshooting not functional

Putting aside my previous posts I am considering a System Reset. I will be using a Windows Install Media Drive to do so. However when I click it, it replies that "The drive where Windows is installed is locked." I believe this has something to do with my
inability to access BCDEdit (which I have tried making the System Reserved partition active).

If I can access BCDEdit I will not actually need to do a System Reset (which may or may not stop the BSODs I get right before the login screen). I do know that I can boot into safe mode if I can get to BCDEdit and enter

or

but again the problem is that I am unable to use BCDEdit because it says "The boot configuration data store could not be opened. The requested system device cannot be found." and "Failure attempting to copy boot
files."

If I get pass this part then I should be able to stop the BSOD by disabling the problematic driver.

 

if you have the Macrium Reflect BootDisk , and can boot from it ? try the option to "Fix windows Boot Problems" , it should find Windows on C:\ hopefully and the rewrite the startup files for you.

You could also do the same thing with Kyhi's Bootdisk which includes Macrium , I use the 160707 Version available here on Ten Forums

Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk - Windows 10 Forums


KB

 

@Kbird,

Thank you for your suggestions. I downloaded both Khyi and Macrium but still no success. With Macrium , I create a rescue disk from my dell laptop onto a USB stick. When I attempt to repair my Lenovo T400 it by using the usb stick it does boot but says 'missing operating system'. Just to make sure that the stick is good, I tested it on my dell laptop and it works fine ie it boots into the Macrium recovery environment and I can see the fix boot problem options to choose.

With Khyi's disk, I don't get much feedback, the Lenovo just reboots in a loop .

Any more suggestions? I'm really hoping to recover vs clean install as I have office 2013 installed on the Lenovo and no idea where my activation key is anymore.

 

How did you set up the USB flash drive for Kyhi's recovery? I recommend this method:
Create a Bootable USB Flash Drive

On step 9 - make sure to use fat32 file system to make the flash drive compatible with both UEFI and BIOS computers:
9. To format the partition, type format fs=fat32 quick, and then click ENTER

On step 12 you will mount Kyhi's recovery drive ISO file and copy all the files and folders from the mounted ISO file to the prepared USB flash drive.

 

Are you using a laptop or Desktop ...the one with the issue....??? if a Laptop it sounds like you may have SecureBoot and Fastboot on in the Bios , which stop USB Drives and sometimes CDs too as a security measure , turn them both off and try again.

KB

 

A big Thank you!! I guess I did not make it bootable previously. I used your link and redid Kyhi's disk. It now boots and fixed my booting problem. Yeah!!!! Thanks so much.

I'll start a new thread with my original problem which sent me down this path and broke my bootup.

 

You're welcome. People like to use all kinds of stuff to create USB flash drives, but the procedure straight from Microsoft, and formatting FAT32, is the most reliable and creates the simplest, most universally bootable flash drive. I like to create an install/repair flash drive by doing the MS procedure to prepare it, mounting and copying over the most recent Windows 10 installation ISO, then mounting Kyhi's recovery drive ISO and copying only the boot.wim file from it to the sources directory of the Windows 10 installation USB flash drive.

That way I get a flash drive that boots into Kyhi's recovery and if I want to do a new installation of Windows from it, all I have to do is run setup.exe from the flash drive while in Kyhi's recovery.

 

Hi, recently my PC was working fine but suddenly i got boot problem like "a device is not connected" and later on "BCD boot file configuration not valid". After a lot of fuss, i downloaded Macrium Reflect USB with WinPE 10. I first used Rufus with NTFS file format to create the bootable Macrium USB but when booted, Marcium reflect neither found an operating system nor showing any hard disk in the computer, allthough its showing in the BIOS. Later on I googled and found that I should make a bootable USB using Fat32 file system since I have UEFI BIOS. So i did that using Rufus again and still Macrium Reflect shows nothing. I dont want to install windows again, but want to restore/fixboot to the previous working condition. Any help would be appreciated.

Thanks.

PC Configuration:
Intel Core i5 Skylake
Gigabyte H110 S2PH
Kingston 8GB Hyper X
1 TB SATA WD Black
Windows 10 Pro

 

Open a command prompt and run:

diskpart
list disk


Is the hard drive shown there?

Code: Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.14393] (c) 2016 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0 Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation. On computer: JOHN-LAPTOP DISKPART> list disk Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt -------- ------------- ------- ------- --- --- Disk 0 Online 447 GB 0 B * Disk 1 Online 931 GB 2048 KB * Disk 2 No Media 0 B 0 B DISKPART>[/quote]

 

You don't need to Use Rufus any longer to make Bootable USB Drives, if you have a UEFI bios just format the USB Key Fat32 , then Mount the Macrium Rescue ISO ( Right click on file and choose Mount) it will then appear just like any other Harddrive or DVD in Windows Explorer , open the mounted drive and copy ALL FILES to the Fat32 USB key you made earlier. Then Boot from the USB key to run the Fix Windows Boot Option.

I suspect that when you made the Macrium Rescue Disk you did not include the Drivers needed to "see" your Hard Drives , this could also happen if you made the .iso on another Computer which uses different hardware eg. on your Laptop? for example I had to make two different Rescue CDs for my two computers as they use different Chipsets

KB.

 

Yes the hard disk shows there and online as well, but neither its marked Dyn nor Gpt (I mean star) and it also says the free space is the same as the size. One thing i would like to mention that when i select the disk, sometimes it selects sometime it does not. And also when i enter list volume command after selecting disk, its shows only the USB drive. Screenshot attached. (Using WinPe 10)

[/quote]

 

Can u please explain a little bit more what you said in the second paragraph. I am using my laptop to create this Bootable Macrium USB. Do i need to do anything else besides what u mentioned in the first para ?

 

In the Pic above you 1st Select Command uses o (letter O) not zero (0) as used in the 2nd command when the command works.

when you make the Rescue .iso on the 2nd dialog box you need to choose drivers , if you make it on the system you will use the Disk with , it should choose everything you need automatically from that system but if you make it on another computer , the .iso may not include the drivers for your HDD Controller on your Desktop , so you will need to find and add them at that stage ,so Macrium can see the HDD's once you boot the Rescue Disk/USB.





KB