Windows 10: Win 8.1 dual boot no longer works.

Hi all,

Thanks for the assist in diagnosing in advance

I have 4 partitions.
1 => System Reserved
2 => Win 10
3 => Win 8.1
4 => Storage

When I try to boot into the win 8.1 it gives me an error. Even after restoring the win 8.1. partition from a Macrium image.

What gives?
Two days ago I decided I wanted to shrink the win 8.1 partition.

I made a macrium image of my Win 10 partition (because I'm not crazy) and I already had a macrium image of win 8.1.
I started shrinking the 8.1 and the computer went unresponsive so I rebooted. I used EASEUS Partition Manager.

I found out later that the reason the computer halted was because the version of EASEUS I used was outdated.

I attempted to boot into 8.1 and was greeted with the error. (Will update this post presently with the picture.)

I updated EASEUS and successfully shrunk the 8.1 partition. I took that unallocated space and enlarged the WIN 10 partition. Still unable to boot into 8.1.

Used macrium to overwrite the 8.1 partition.

Computer refused to boot completely. No Win 10 or Win 8.

Macrium restored the Win 10 partition, and the Win 8.1 partition. Discovered something interesting. Macrium restored the partitions as if I had never shrunk the 8.1 partition and enlarged the Win 10 partition. Is it supposed to do that?

Still unable to boot into Win 8.

What gives

:)

 

Windows Defender Will Not Start This operation returned because the timeout period expired W10

Nope - None. Started as a Clean install on a Win 8.1 partition on a dual boot (Win7/Win8) machine. Used Windows Defender on the Win 8.1 partition, Upgraded to Win 10, After the Upgrade Windows Defender stopped working.

Fixed it by copying ALL Windows Defender files in my son's win 10 machine, and dual booted my machine in to Win 7, and then copied my sons files in the Windows Defender Directory on the Win 10 partition.

Worked, But not really a portable solution.

 

win 10 x64 boots slower than win 8

I have a dual boot setup with the above-mentioned OS versions.

I upgraded win 8.1 x64 through the versions to win 10 build 10240. Boot time from the OS selection screen is much longer on win 10 before the logon screen appears. Win 8 seems only a couple of seconds for the lock screen to appear but win 10 seems to be
about 30 seconds.

Any way to speed this up?

Tim

 

Assuming you are booting from a Macrium Reflect Rescue Disk? Under one of the restore menus in Macrium Reflect (can't remember exactly which one) is a tool that allows you to fix Windows booting. Try running that to recreate your boot files. Before you do that, I would set the Windows 10 partition as the active partition using a bootable version of either EASEUS or MiniTool Partition Wizard. I've always had very good luck with MiniTool Partition Wizard. I've tried both and prefer MiniTool. That will put the boot files on the Windows 10 partition when you fix booting with Macrium Reflect assuming that is going to be your most permanent partition. If that doesn't work, then the System Reserved partition should probably be the active partition.

Whatever partition is set as the active partition is where bios will look for the boot files. When the boot files load, whatever partition is selected to load the operating system from becomes the system partition.

 

Hi Navy,

Thanks for responding.

Not sure what you mean. I probably didn't write clearly enough.

The rig boots into Win 10 fine. Just throws up an error when I try to boot into 8.1.

I thought that since I restored a working image, everything should work as it did yesterday. Isn't that the purpose of Macrium images?

Will try what you suggested about fixing booting.

I also note that I have been meaning to try MiniTool Partition. I've been told repeatedly that it's better than EASEUS. I'll download and try later on today.

 

Ok. What probably happened is something with the partition identification got messed up in the boot files pointing to the Windows 8.1 installation. So, I would still run the windows booting fix utility in Macrium Reflect, and you can probably do that within the version you currently have installed. I think you should be able to add the Windows 8.1 partition back to the current boot files you have. Since you are booting OK into Windows 10, don't change the active partition just yet.

If that doesn't work, I'll have to wait until I get home tonight to go through the steps with a different program to re-establish dual booting - unless someone else comes along before then with a fix (using EasyBCD is how I would do it if Macrium Reflect didn't work).

Also need to know what error you are getting when trying to boot into Windows 8.1.

 

And voila.

Just like that it works again. To be clear. I ran the Macrium Reflect boot repair option and told it to use the System Reserved Partition as boot.

Now it works properly.

Everything was a bit slow, just as it is when you delete all the superfetch information with CCleaner, but everything works just as it should.

Thank you very much sir.

As an aside. Doesn't 8.1 look better than 10? The icons are better looking, not so industrial.

I really like how much more stable 10 is than 8.1 but why isn't it better looking as well?