PC needs repaired (\Boot\BCD) + bootrec /rebuildBCD doesn't work!

[Dudeguyy]

OK, long story short:

Came home to an unbootable rig this evening. Reset my PC a few days ago because it was performing poorly. Thought it worked fine for a while... guess not.

Win10 installed on SSD C:. Can boot with Win10 recovery disk, but Startup Repair Utility fails. Got into Cmd Prompt and am able to run bootrec /fixMBR and bootrec /fixboot but when I try bootrec /rebuildBCD it tells me the requested drive cannot be found.

Any ideas? I'm completely lost. Error code 0xc000000f.

Sorry if that's short on details... let me know anything else you'd need to know. Thanks in advance!

 

[SkyNetRising]

How many drives do you have in system?
First boot from windows 10 installation media/command prompt, run chkdsk on bootloader volume and windows volume.

• chkdsk x: /f

Then use bcdboot command to fix bootloader.

• bcdboot x:\windows /s y:

(x: - windows volume, y: bootloader volume)

You can find assigned volume letters with:

• diskpart
  list volume

 

[Dudeguyy]

How many drives do you have in system?
First boot from windows 10 installation media/command prompt, run chkdsk on bootloader volume and windows volume.

• chkdsk x: /f

Then use bcdboot command to fix bootloader.

• bcdboot x:\windows /s y:

(x: - windows volume, y: bootloader volume)

You can find assigned volume letters with:

• diskpart
  list volume

Ok, ran both of these. Chkdsk found the following for c:

Assume that means it's good?

Here's the diskpart list of volumes. I noticed none of them are FAT32 and they're all NTFS. Is that typical for Windows 10?

I proceeded assuming Volume 2 was the bootloader.

Ran the second command you listed:

But upon reboot, still get the original error message. Didn't appear to work.

Ideas? Thanks for the help btw!

 

[SkyNetRising]

Volume 2 is hidden.
If that indeed is bootloader volume, then you have to unhide it.

• diskpart
  select volume 2
  attributes volume clear hidden

Can you also post screenshot of these commands:

• diskpart
  list disk
  select disk 0
  list partition

 

[jamsonus]

Looks like you tried to fix this problem in proper way, but for some reason Microsoft tools couldn't cope.

I recommend alternative tool Emergency Boot Kit which can rebuild BCD store from scratch. It's a live USB thumbdrive which does not use Microsoft tools.

Fix Boot Error 0xC000000F

 

[Dudeguyy]

Volume 2 is hidden.
If that indeed is bootloader volume, then you have to unhide it.

• diskpart
  select volume 2
  attributes volume clear hidden

Can you also post screenshot of these commands:

• diskpart
  list disk
  select disk 0
  list partition

Here is the list of commands you told me to run:

My OS is installed on Disk 0 and I use disk 1 for storage.

I'm not quite sure volume the boot loader is supposed to be on, quite honestly. I haven't come across anything anywhere else on the web like this that people weren't able to fix with some form of bootrec.

 

[Dudeguyy]

Do you think I'm better off just doing a fresh install of Windows since I recently reset it anyway?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Oh. Your system doesn't have designated bootloader partition. This is not standard.
Then let's create one.

• diskpart
  select disk 0
  select partition 1
  shrink desired=500
  create partition primary
  format fs=ntfs quick
  active
  assign letter=g
  exit
  bcdboot c:\windows /s g:

Reboot and done.

 

[SkyNetRising]

Do you think I'm better off just doing a fresh install of Windows since I recently reset it anyway?

If fixing with diskpart fails, then yes - you can do that.
Just disconnect your 2TB storage drive during installation, if you decide to do windows reinstall.

 

[Dudeguyy]

Oh. Your system doesn't have designated bootloader partition. This is not standard.
Then let's create one.

• diskpart
  select disk 0
  select partition 1
  shrink desired=500
  create partition primary
  format fs=ntfs quick
  active
  assign letter=g
  exit
  bcdboot c:\windows /s g:

Reboot and done.

Let's do it. First problem:

Get to shrink desired=500 and it spits back this message:

"The specified shrink size is too big and will cause the volume to be smaller than the minimum volume size."

 

[SkyNetRising]

You probably selected partition 2 (not partition 1).
You have to execute commands exactly as they are written and in correct order.

 

[Dudeguyy]

No, I've selected disk 0 and partition 1. I followed the steps to the letter. I even have the asterisk by partition 1 under list partition.

Shrink querymax tells me the max number of reclaimable bytes is 20 GB.

I have no idea why it would tell me 500MB is too large.

 

[Dudeguyy]

I also took your advice on trying to make Volume 2 unhidden (attributes volume clear hidden) but it tells me the object is not found.

Don't know if that helps?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Well - you can delete recovery partition and make bootloader partition there.
Double check that correct partition is selected before delete command!

• diskpart
  select disk 0
  select partition 2
  delete partition override
  create partition primary
  format fs=ntfs quick
  active
  assign letter=g
  exit
  bcdboot c:\windows /s g:
  

 

[Dudeguyy]

Well - you can delete recovery partition and make bootloader partition there.
Double check that correct partition is selected before delete command!

• diskpart
  select disk 0
  select partition 2
  delete partition override
  create partition primary
  format fs=ntfs quick
  active
  assign letter=g
  exit
  bcdboot c:\windows /s g:
  

Did all of this successfully, still no luck upon boot. I noticed that when I ran bootrec /rebuildBCD again that it listed E: (my DVD drive) as the only version of Windows it detected. Does this mean it doesn't even detect Windows still installed on C:?

Anyway, given the multitude of issues, I decided to just try a clean install. However, upon trying to install Windows in Disk 0 Partition 1, I'm greeted with the following:

This is really frustrating. Sorry for the difficulty, SNR... trying to follow along as best I can.

 

[Dudeguyy]

Found two possible solutions in this thread.

1) Disable EFI boot sources within BIOS. Not sure this is a good idea since the DVD drive my recovery disc is in is UEFI...?

2) Delete partitions from the installation screen above and create a new (GPT) one to install Windows on.

Thoughts?

 

[SkyNetRising]

Did you reset BIOS settings at some point?
Because your system previously was in legacy boot (not UEFI).

If you want to boot in UEFI, then all those commands I wrote before can not fix it.
First - your SSD drive would need to be partitioned in gpt format and instead of

• create partition primary

you would need use command

• create partition efi

Your options are either change BIOS to legacy boot only or
cleaning your SSD before installing windows. Installation will then repartition and format everything as needed.
It's absolutely necessary to disconnect your 2TB before doing that.

You can clean drive with this:
(data destructive process, use with caution)

• diskpart
  select disk 0
  clean

 

[Dudeguyy]

Update:

All is well. Did a fresh install of Windows using the solution SNR recommended above. Thanks for hanging with me on that man! Good advice to both of you. Really appreciate the help.

Did wind up losing what I had on C:, which was not much, and it may be backed up online. I believe I did that in the past, so I should be mostly good. May check the RAM to see if that was what was causing the hanging issues that led me to do the Windows Reset in the first place.

Thanks again! You guys are the best!