Windows 10: USB Recovery Dependent Boot into Windows

This story tells best from present to past.

Currently, here's how I boot into windows: I boot to a recovery USB, then I choose "Use harddisk" and windows boots just fine. I want to cut the middle-man (USB recovery) out of this relationship.

If I don't use the recovery disk, the bootloader says no windows installation found.

When I try to repair using "bootrec /fixboot" from the command prompt on the USB disk it says "Access denied."

"bootrec /rebuildbcd" shows my windows installation, I enter "Y" and get the response "The requested system device cannot be found"

bcdboot is able to copy the boot files from my USB to the recovery partition.

Here's the context (cliff notes):

• USB recovery disk was made on a Surface Book.
• The desktop is an AMD FX-8350 build with RAM stability problems. The instability is what lead to the crash which screwed up booting.
• I cloned my boot SSD in the fall to a new larger SSD, then didn't fully format the old SSD. I simply changed the boot order in BIOS. Since then, I changed the system partition ID on the old SSD to the ID for a standard data partition and then attempted to format the disk from the USB recovery drive. The current issue above happened after I formated this old SSD.
• I ran chkdsk /scan. It was able to fix the one error it gave me.
• I ran memory diagnostic (cause of instability which caused the initial crash). No problems. Personally, I think my mobo is about to kick the case, but I want to keep this machine running until I can purchase an upgrade.

tl;dr: Computer boots fully into only when using a loophole through "use harddisk" from a USB recovery drive. I want to exit the dependent relationship.

submitted by /u/techygrizz101
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:)

 

Installing windows off of a USB stick

Step By Step from vista:
From admin cmd prompt

1. diskpart
1a. list disk
2. select disk 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
3. clean
4. create partition primary
5. select partition 1 (replace 1 with your usb drive)
6. active
7. format fs=fat32
8. assign
9. exit

Copy Windows Vista's DVD ROM content to the Flash Drive

xcopy d:\*.* /s/e/f e:\ (d being your vista cd and e being your usb stick)

And that's it, boot off your usb disk

 

Windows 10 USB boot

Hi there, am not a windows 10 expert. I have a pc in the bedroom on windows 10, I messed up the bootloader trying to fix the xp on that system.

System wont boot, trying to repair via win 10 usb installer.

Downloaded the media creation tool to install windows 10 installer on usb stick. Not compatible with a host of usb sticks I have. Tried the usb sticks that others use, but I think they use rufus; as the media creation tool by win 10 does not detect the usb stick.

So quick question, the win10 machine i am trying to repair the bootloader is a win7 upgraded to win10.
If i were to use the usb win10 installer to "repair installation" does the version of the iso downloaded via the media creation tool matter?

There is three options:
Windows 10
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 N

Also is there a step by step instead of using rufus as I want to try an alternative method of creating a usb win 10 installer. Preferably with more compatibility.

System is a asus sabertooth 990 (r2?) with AMD phenom X 6.

Also is there any other software I can load onto the usb that can repair the bootloader easily?
That would be the ideal alternative. Thanks

 

How does Windows boot to advanced recovery option e.g. command prompt?

- that gives me a 454 'Unexpected error' This tells me that the BCD is partially corrupted.

The commands: shutdown.exe /r /o /f /t 00
or: %SystemRoot%\System32\Cmd.exe /c reagentc /boottore&shutdown /r /f /t 00
should boot into Recovery if everything is configured correctly.
FYI, If Windows is configured correctly:

1. If Reagentc is disabled, you still can get into Recovery but with limited options.
2. If Reagentc is enabled, you'll get all options.
3. If you boot Windows using Recovery USB stick, You'll get into Recovery with couple of options missing.

Here's my suggestion if you want to try:
OPTION 1: Will save the trouble of re-install Windows.

1. Download the image of my first 3 partitions (450MB Recovery, 100 MB EFI partition, and 16MB unformatted primary)
   EFI_Boot-00-00.7z - Google Drive
2. Run Macrium and restore the image from step 1, overwriting your existing 1st three partitions, leaving C alone.
3. Delete the 490MB Recovery partition.
4. From Macrium, run fix boot problems.
5. Reboot. Open Admin command prompt then run Reagentc /info to make sure that it is enabled. If not, enable it.
   if failed to enable, reboot and try again.

OPTION 2: Assuming you've already had Windows backup with Macrium.

1. Wipe out the first 5 parttiions. (450MB, 100MB, 16MB, C Drive, 480MB)
2. Fresh install Windows 10
3. Restore C drive from backup image, run fix boot problems
4. repeat step 5 from OPTION 1 above.