Making a Windows partition bootable without a "reserved" partition

[Jimmy59]

Making a Windows partition bootable without a "reserved" partition

I have a disk that contains a Win7x64 partition. Previously the drive contained a small, active boot partition that would load Windows from the current partition. Now, however, all that I have is the Windows partition. I rebuilt the MBR/Partition table, and my Windows partition is active. Now, I'm trying to build the BCD and related files so that my system will load Windows.

I booted from the Win disk and tried the automatic repair three times, which did not help. So, I tried the following manual operations at the command prompt:

bootrec /fixmbr
bootsect /nt60 all /force
attrib -h -s C:\boot\BCD
del C:\boot\BCD
bcdedit /createstore c:\boot\bcd.temp
bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd.temp /create {bootmgr} /d "Windows Boot Manager"
bcdedit /import c:\boot\bcd.temp
bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=C:
bcdedit /timeout 10
attrib -h -s C:\boot\bcd.temp
del c:\boot\bcd.temp
bcdedit /create /d "Microsoft Windows" /application osloader
bcdedit /set {ca9be6f8-ff00-11e2-87ab-da25c2e31d5c} device partition=C:
bcdedit /set {ca9be6f8-ff00-11e2-87ab-da25c2e31d5c} osdevice partition=C:
bcdedit /set {ca9be6f8-ff00-11e2-87ab-da25c2e31d5c} path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
bcdedit /set {ca9be6f8-ff00-11e2-87ab-da25c2e31d5c} systemroot \Windows
bcdedit /displayorder {ca9be6f8-ff00-11e2-87ab-da25c2e31d5c}

Every command completed successfully, but Windows will not start. The system boots, but hangs with a cursor in a black screen. I can't think of any other steps, unless I missed something. Thanks.

 

[gregrocker]

Those edits are old school, XPired methods that leave you without WinRE and other important functions. We use automated methods now since there are many more parameters requiring testing and repair than just the BCD when you change the Active boot partition.

Mark the Win7 partition Active, then run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times.

 

[Jimmy59]

Thanks. As I mentioned, I am running in a recovery environment, and had made the three auto repair attempts, FWIW. The commands are neither expired nor obsolete. Running Startup Repair X times doesn't do anything that the commands didn't do. I've used this approach on Win7 before, but thought that I missing something in this case. Can you identify the additional parameters that may require repair or editing or suggest an automated tool that provides a log of every action that it took?

 

[gregrocker]

As stated if you don't run the repeat repairs which test and apply multiple fixes besides the bootrec/bootsect commands you ll have no F8 WinRe link onboard.

Almost all of the standard Win7 fixes and Best Practices were developed here since early beta, which is why we are far and away the top tech forums on the web and the home of Win7.

Everything possible which can be done is here for http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/219533-troubleshooting-windows-7-failure-boot.html