Windows 10: How i created the BCD Store by accident

Recently my laptop would not boot up. There are actually 2 Win 10 Pro 64 partitiions, "production" and "test and scratch," which I select either using the boot menu. I set up the multi-boot using EasyBCD.

When my system would not boot up, MiniTool was saying that there were empty partition where the system reserved partition and both Windows partitions. I always keep all my data in a separate D: drive. I was getting nowhere fast trying to use a backup software tool to restore the system reserve and Windows partitions, but I really needed to get some of that data off the system.

So I use Minitool to reduce the size of the data partition by 30 GB and installed 1903, using the MCT to create an install image. I did the install with the "I don't have a serial number" option and it all worked. Suddenly both "lost" Windows partitions appeared to be intact and with drive letters assigned. *Cool*Eek

Don't ask me how this all happened, because I can't explain it. So I installed EasyBCD into the new Windows install, set up my real production partition as default, and it all worked! Again, I can't explain it, but I'm not complaining. And I didn't need to run diskpart, which is very powerful but I'm always worried that I might destroy important data. *Thumbs

:)

 

How to clean up BCD entries? Rebuild the BCD?

This is normal that under Recovery Environment, The letters are re-assigned. This is why you have to be careful and select the correct one.
@dictum
Advice: Never use Easy BCD with Windows installed using GPT disk. Use Easy UEFI instead provided you know what you are doing. Easy BCD only works with MBR disk type.
Base on the screen shot above. Your disk 0 is your new Windows and your disk 1 contains the old Windows. Disk 3 contains a 512MB Fat32 partition and I don't know what that is. I suggest you disconnect disk 3 for now before proceeding.

Let rebuild new BCD's for both disk 0, and disk 1. Please follow step by step on the 2 screen shots below. On step 3, write down the drive letter for PM981_New. In the screen shot, My Windows is still assigned to C but it might be different from yours. In step 10, if the drive letter is different than C, then use the letter in step 3.

Do exactly the same for disk 1, this time select disk 1 in step 4 and assign letter V in step 7, Use V and the drive letter for Old Windows in step 10. This will create a new BCD for PM981_Old and you will be able to boot separately from boot menu.

From boot menu, select which one to boot from.
Once booted into Windows. If you wish, you can set up dual boot for Windows old & New. Under This PC, look for the drive letter of the offline Windows and type:
bcdboot X:\Windows where X is the letter of the offline Windows

 

Error code 0xc000000f, BCD corrupted

Hi Andre,

As per the description, I suggest that you follow the steps below to fix BCD

1. Right click on the Start Menu and select Command Prompt (Admin)

2. Here type/paste the commands listed below

Bootrec /fixMBR

Bootrec /fixBoot

Bootrec /RebuildBcd

3. Once done restart the PC and check.

Hope this helps

 

BCD store deleted after disk cloning with Macrium, why?

Where is the BCD store physically located?

• 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.

Post a screen capture of Disk Management

See this tutorial: Disk Management - How to Post a Screenshot of

Make sure you expand the fields as shown so all data can be seen.

BTW, you already have a thread open on this problem in the General Support forum:
bcdedit: The boot configuration data store could not be opened. You should stay in that thread and not start a new one in a different forum.

See my post in the other thread.