Boot Problem In Win 8.1

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I have 2 SSD’s, one running Win 7 Pro and the other running Win 8.1, but I can’t distinguish between them in the BIOS because the description of both is identical.

The last time I was able to boot Win 8.1 it was working perfectly. Now however when I try to boot Win 8.1 I am told “Your PC needs to be repaired. A required device isn’t connected or can’t be accessed”. None of the options on the screen are accessible.

If I boot from my Win 8.1 DVD, which worked perfectly when I installed Win 8.1, it doesn’t work.

In Win 7 the first screen in Easy BCD shows the following details:

“There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Microsoft Windows 7
Timeout: 20 seconds
Boot Drive: C:

Entry #1
Name: Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {718a217b-3d0f-11e3-9771-9858dc1cdd1a}
Device: unknown
Bootloader Path: WINDOWSsystem32winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:
Bootloader Path: Windowssystem32winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Macrium Reflect System Recovery
BCD ID: {dd3e59ac-8670-11e3-ad9b-5404a6488cc3}
Device: [C:]bootmacriumwa5kfilesmediasourcesboot.wim
Bootloader Path: windowssystem32bootwinload.exe”

Urgent help to resolve this problem would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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Entry #1
Name: Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {718a217b-3d0f-11e3-9771-9858dc1cdd1a}
Device: unknown
Bootloader Path: WINDOWSsystem32winload.exe

I note that Device: unknown appears where I would expect a drive letter as it does in my dual boot system (see attached).
36127-EasyBcd

While booted in Windows 7 is there a listing of the Windows 8 drive in Explorer? Hopefully, this will help in trouble-shooting. Perhaps an administrator will offer more assistance after your results are posted.

Rich

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Rich, thanks for your reply.

In your attachment the drive letter for Win 8.1 is D at the top of the Window, but C below that. Why is that? Also, do I change my entries in Easy BCD while booted in Win 7 or Win 8.1?

Please advise.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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EasyBCD allows for changing the order of the operating systems and which is the default when booting. However, you should check your drives/partitions with Disk Management to see if the 8.1 partition is displayed and has a drive letter assigned to it.

Rich

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When I boot Win 7 Local Disk (C) is Win 7, as you would expect, and Local Disk (K) is Win 8.1.

All drives have drive letters in Disk Management.

When I boot to Win 7 there is no problem.

When I try to boot Win 8.I get a Blue Screen with the option to “Repair your PC” but that doesn’t work.

If I restart and go into the BIOS boot priority screen 2 SSD’s are listed. (Both operating systems are installed on identical SSD drives). They are listed as P1 and P2, but I have no way of knowing which is which. Whether I choose to boot P1 or P2 I get the option to boot Win 7 or Win 8.1, but I cannot select Win 8.1.

This must be due to the way I have reconfigured EasyBCD, because prior to doing that I could boot Win 8.1 by choosing P1 in the BIOS boot priority screen.

I would greatly appreciate it if you could please tell me, step by step, how I should configure EasyBCD.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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You could try the procedure listed here:
https://neosmart.net/wiki/easyre/recovery/automated-repair/

Jerry

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Thanks Jerry, this Neosmart tool escaped my notice and is an excellent next step for royw.
However, he may not wish to purchase.

Rich

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Suggest you try the following.
From within Windows 7, run EasyBCD and choose Advanced Settings from menu on left. On top right, Select the OS (Windows 8).
Bottom right look for Drive and choose the correct drive letter. I believe you identified Windows 8 as letter drive K. Make sure that is the case. Hope this helps.

Rich

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Jerry and Rich, thanks but Rich your suggestion didn’t work, and Jerry the following is the text of the email I sent yesterday to EasyRe:

” I downloaded the program and burned the ISO to a bootable CD. I then chose
to boot my PC from the CD drive by choosing that option in the BIOS.

When the CD booted I chose automated repair of Windows 8.1, as Windows 7,
which is on a separate disk, previously booted normally. However, although
your program said it succeeded, when I removed the CD and chose to boot
Windows 8.1 it resulted in a blue screen, and my only option was to attempt
repairs with my Windows 8.1 DVD. That didn’t work. Not only that but I could
not boot Win 7 either! My only option then was to restore Win7 and Win 8
from my Macrium Reflect Rescue CD, which worked.

I tried booting from your program’s CD more than once, and on one occasion
got a long list of very technical details, the first line of which read as
follows:

VFS: Cannot open root device “null” or unknown- block (0,0).

I can now boot Win 7 without any problem, but the only way I can boot Win
8.1 is to choose the boot option P1 from the BIOS, and that works, although
that method is obviously inconvenient. (I should mention that Win 7 and Win
8.1 are on identical SSD drives, and the BIOS description for both, which
refers to them as P1 and P2, is identical. (I can’t boot from P2).

Can you please tell me URGENTLY how to fix the Win 8.1 boot problem.

Apart from the above, can you please arrange for the email giving me the
license code for your program to be resent to me, as that was not included
in the Macrium Reflect backup image.

Your URGENT reply would be appreciated”.

If you have any further suggestions, pending a reply from EasyRe, I would be grateful.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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For the bit you mention where you have problems knowing which is which drive in the BIOS, depending on the motherboard you may be able to tell with a quick peek in the case. Some motherboards will label each individual SATA controller with a number, and so the first number in the chain of cables will appear first in the BIOS. Follow the cable for each drive, make a note of which socket they plug into, and what the number is, then examine the BIOS.

What can sometimes snafu that is when the label on the motherboard is 1-based (e.g., “1, 2, 3, 4”) and the BIOS is 0-based (e.g., “0, 1, 2”) It’s just something to watch for…for example, if you see the cable in Socket 1, and the BIOS says “Drive 0”, that may be the same thing.

I then tend to use a sharpie to mark the drives, so in future I know which has which OS.

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tbbennett, thanks but I have no confidence in my ability to open the case and do anything inside it.

Do you, or does anyone else, have any other suggestion?

Please advise.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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tbbennett, thanks but I have no confidence in my ability to open the case and do anything inside it.

Do you, or does anyone else, have any other suggestion?

Please advise.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

As a shot in the dark, try:

1. In Win 7 open the Disk Management and make note of the drive letter shown for both Win 7 and 8.1.

2. If Win 8.1 has no drive letter, assign one and make note of it.

3. Open Easy BCD and in Edit, delete the entry for the “unknown”. Save and go back to Add new Entry and add the entry using the 8.1 Drive letter. Don’t worry, it’ll change to C: after boot and shouldn’t be a problem. The assigned drive letter from Disk Management is used so that the proper drive can be found to start the boot process as I understand it. Could be wrong about that but it works for me.

Hope this Helps!

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[Font=Georgia][Size=3]The actual bootmgr that reads the BCDStore looks at drive/partition, not drive letters (drive 0 partition 2, for example). EasyBCD uses drive letters because it runs under Windows, but it does the actual work using the same drive/partition info the the bootmgr looks for.

My guess is that your drive K used to be drive D (and Windows somehow pooched it), since a dual boot Windows configuration usually sets up that way. If you can successfully use Disk Management to change the drive K to drive D, you should be able to get EasyBCD to configure Windows 8. Drive D may be in use (for your optical drive, maybe), so you might have to change a couple of drive letters around in order to get Windows 8 on drive D (my DVD drive is F, for example).

Whenever I boot into Windows 7, it’s on drive C and Windows 8 is on drive D. When I boot into Windows 8, it’s on drive C and Windows 7 is on drive D. That’s the way Windows handles it.[/Size][/Font]

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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[Font=Georgia][Size=3]
My guess is that your drive K used to be drive D (and Windows somehow pooched it), since a dual boot Windows configuration usually sets up that way. If you can successfully use Disk Management to change the drive K to drive D, you should be able to get EasyBCD to configure Windows 8. Drive D may be in use (for your optical drive, maybe), so you might have to change a couple of drive letters around in order to get Windows 8 on drive D (my DVD drive is F, for example).

Whenever I boot into Windows 7, it’s on drive C and Windows 8 is on drive D. When I boot into Windows 8, it’s on drive C and Windows 7 is on drive D. That’s the way Windows handles it.[/Size][/Font]

I dual boot with 7 on C: and 8.1 on N:. Since I originally ran 7 it always appeared as C: as usual. When I added 8/8.1 using Win7 Disk Management I split the primary C: partition to install 8/8.1 on its primary partition designated as N: which works as you stated, N: becomes C: as boot for 8.1 but then Win 7 “disappears” from File Explorer because it not longer is C:. Fixed that for backup purposes by using 8.1 DM to designate it as N: when in 8.1. Seems to work well for me that’s why I made the suggestion. What may have made this feasible for me is the fact that I only use an extended partition with D:, E:, etc.. This extends across three HDDs with two of those having single partitions. Again, for my backup convenience. Two machines are setup like this with no problems in the network.

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bbearren, I tried to change the existing drive letter D to another letter, so that I could then change the drive letter for K to D, but whatever available drive letter I chose I was told that the parameter is incorrect.

How do I sort this out?

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You can try Visual BCD Editor. It has a Repair function that looks for all bootable entries.

I use the Windows 7 bootmgr instead of Windows 8 bootmgr, but I use BootIt Bare Metal to edit the BCD.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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I installed Visual BCD Editor and it shows volume 1 (K:) for Win 8.1 and volume 2 (C:) for Win 7.

If I select Win 8.1 and “Repair Boot” the drive is shown as C and below that it says Vista/7. Below that is the Fix MBR box- if the foregoing details look OK to you should I select the Fix MBR box and click OK?

Please advise.

Thanks again,
Roy

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I installed Visual BCD Editor and it shows volume 1 (K:) for Win 8.1 and volume 2 (C:) for Win 7.

If I select Win 8.1 and “Repair Boot” the drive is shown as C and below that it says Vista/7. Below that is the Fix MBR box- if the foregoing details look OK to you should I select the Fix MBR box and click OK?

Please advise.

Thanks again,
Roy

Yes, select fix MBR and OK.

Always create a fresh drive image before making system changes/Windows updates; you may need to start over!

We all have our own reasons for doing the things that we do with our systems; we don't need anyone's approval, and we don't all have to do the same things.

We were all once "Average Users".

Computer Specs

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I went ahead and selected the Fix MBR box and clicked OK (I did this in Safe Mode, and prior to that I created Restore Points for Win 7 and Win 8), but when I restarted and tried to boot Win 7 I was told Ïnvalid Partition Table. I can now only boot Win 8.1. HELP!!

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While in Win 8.1 I checked the entries in Easy BCD and they are:

“There are a total of 5 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Microsoft Windows
Timeout: 30 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: C:

Entry #1
Name: Microsoft Windows
BCD ID: {current}
Device: locate=Windows{589d5fb4-05cd-41b6-b113-f6a9d8cdc627}
Bootloader Path: windowssystem32winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {c624c077-8942-11e3-beac-5404a6488cc3}
Drive: C:
Bootloader Path: Windowssystem32winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Microsoft Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {c624c078-8942-11e3-beac-5404a6488cc3}
Drive: C:
Bootloader Path: Windowssystem32winload.exe

Entry #4
Name: Microsoft Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {c624c079-8942-11e3-beac-5404a6488cc3}
Drive: C:
Bootloader Path: Windowssystem32winload.exe

Entry #5
Name: Microsoft Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {c624c07a-8942-11e3-beac-5404a6488cc3}
Drive: C:
Bootloader Path: Windowssystem32winload.exe”

If I boot either of the Microsoft Windows entries Win 8.1 starts.

How do I get Win 7 to start again?

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I decided to restore Win 7 from a Macrium Reflect image, which was completely up to date, and I am pleased to say that it worked, and I am pleased and relieved to say that I can now choose to boot either Win 7 or Win 8.1 or Macrium’s Recovery Environment without having to go into the BIOS.

The entries in Easy BCD are now as follows:

“There are a total of 3 entries listed in the bootloader.

Default: Microsoft Windows 7
Timeout: 10 seconds
Boot Drive: C:

Entry #1
Name: Windows 8.1
BCD ID: {718a217b-3d0f-11e3-9771-9858dc1cdd1a}
Drive: K:
Bootloader Path: WINDOWSsystem32winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Microsoft Windows 7
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:
Bootloader Path: Windowssystem32winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Macrium Reflect System Recovery
BCD ID: {7fa506e6-87a2-11e3-bd02-5404a6488cc3}
Device: [C:]bootmacriumwa5kfilesmediasourcesboot.wim
Bootloader Path: windowssystem32bootwinload.exe”

When I booted Win 7 I noticed a new desktop icon named Startup Repair, which I assume is to do with Visual BCD. (In view of my experience I will uninstall that program).

The only remaining problem is that when I start Win 7 I get the message “Asus [SetupInfo value is NULL).” Do you have any idea as to how I can fix this?

Please advise.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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The only remaining problem is that when I start Win 7 I get the message “Asus [SetupInfo value is NULL).” Do you have any idea as to how I can fix this?

Delete the asussetup.exe item in your startup list using MsConfig, Autoruns, etc.

Jerry

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Jerry, thanks a lot. I deleted 2 items for asussetup.exe using autoruns (they weren’t shown anywhere else) and that solved the problem.

The only thing I am puzzled about now is that, although I can boot either Win 7 or Win 8.1 without any problem, when I go to Computer Management there is no reference to boot for Win 8.1, whichever OS I am in. Does this matter, and if so what can I do about it?

Please advise.

Thanks and regards,
Roy

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Regarding post #23, my local computer technician told me that the boot menu must reside on the SSD for Win 7, which seems logical to me, because regardless of the fact that Disk Management has no reference to boot for the Win 8.1 disk I have no problem booting either OS or the Macrium Recovery Environment, so I think this thread can be considered closed.

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