/RebuildBCD - Total identified Windows installations: 0

Vinicius MT · 03 Dec 2014

I've got an error status 0xc0000098 within the Boot/BCD files and when I do the /RebuildBCD command, it can't identify any Windows installations.

The reserved system files are in the C partition, wich is active, and the Windows files are in the D partition.

I have Ubuntu installed in my second HDD. Running Gparted, the D part is marked with an exclamation icon and when I try to mount it, I got this message:

Error mounting: mount exited with exit code 14: Hibernated non-system partition, refused to mount.
Failed to mount '/dev/sda2': Operation not permitted
The NTFS partition is hibernated. Please resume and shutdown Windows
properly, or mount the volume read-only with the 'ro' mount option, or
mount the volume read-write with the 'remove_hiberfile' mount option.
For example type on the command line:

mount -t ntfs-3g -o remove_hiberfile /dev/sda2 /media/94C48149C4812E94

So, I guess the problem is it. The /RebuildBCD command can't access the Windows files to fix the BCD in the C part. because it's hibernated. If I mount the volume 'ro' or mount it read-write with the 'remove_hiberfile' as the description says, will it fix it?

Mark Phelps · 03 Dec 2014

The following is from askubuntu about using the remove_hiberfile option:

If you need to mount the partition in read-write mode and are not able to or willing to boot into Windows and shut it down completely there is a third option. However, it is not included here because it completely deletes hiberfil.sys and will cause you to lose all unsaved information in the hibernated Windows programs. The following is a quotation from man ntfs-3g about the option that would be used to do this.
remove_hiberfile Unlike in case of read-only mount, the read-write mount is denied if the NTFS volume is hibernated. One needs either to resume Windows and shutdown it properly, or use this option which will remove the Windows hibernation file. Please note, this means that the saved Windows session will be completely lost. Use this option under your own responsibility.

While this could then give you access to the partition and be able to read/write it, it's possible that Win7 will no longer boot after that.

In general, it's a bad idea to use Linux utilities to mess around with Windows filesystems.

gregrocker · 03 Dec 2014

The repairs you want are to Mark C Partition Active then run Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times to reassert the Win7 Boot loader.

Then if you need to add Linux to a Window Boot menu follow this post to Dual boot Ubuntu-Win7.

In some cases where Startup Repair cannot find an OS to repair even after repeatedly running it, you'd want to actually back up and Rebuild the BCD as shown in How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows.

Keep in mind that if heavily infected the system may not repair until disinfected. All of this is covered in sequence in Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start