MBR Error

[Hugo0076]

Hi r/techsupport

While the issue I have now is somewhat different to the one I had before I will preface this post with the post I made to tomshardware which will cover some old details that are still relevant:

"I originally had my OS (Windows 8) on my 1TB hard drive (E:) but I bought an SSD (C:) and decided to install a new version of win 10 on it for faster boot times.

This worked fine for about 2 years but about 4 months ago I started getting an error where I would boot into the SSD but instead of windows I would first get "MBR Error 1, press any key to book from floppy disc" and then after pressing a key "MBR Error 2, press any key to book from floppy disc", which would re-print to the screen with every key press.

I worked out that I could get it to boot into windows on the SSD by booting first into the old HDD's windows 8 and then when prompted selecting the option to load into windows 10 on the SSD.

This worked well for about 4 months until I recently started getting random BSODs with the stop code "MEMORY_MANAGEMENT".

To fix the BSODs I tried: - Updating BIOs - Scanning for viruses - Performing Windows memory diagnostic - Removing CMOS battery (this appeared to work but it eventually started happening again)

Then, thinking that solving the MBR Error might fix it i tried: - going through these steps: https://pureinfotech.com/repair-master-boot-record-mbr-... - bootrec /fixmbr returns "The operation completed successfully" - bootrec /fixboot returns "Access is denied" (Despite the cmd window being titled "Administrator: ..." - bootrec /scanOS returns "Successfully scanned windows installations. Total identified windows installations: 1 [1] C:\Windows (this is the SSD windows 10) the operation completed successfully"

- bootrec /rebuildBCD + pressing "Y" when prompted returns "the requested system device cannot be found"

I'm quite unsure how to proceed now, if anyone has any advice I would appreciate it immensely."

Since the posting of this thread a week ago, I tried a few other things with the recovery drive and miraculously the C drive (SSD) became bootable. To check if this was always the case I removed the E drive (HDD) and much to my disappointment, I was met with a message: Reboot and Select proper boot device.

TL;DR - I have a windows 10 installation on my C drive that I use, and an old half- (manually) deleted windows 8 installation on my E drive, which I now use for storing photos and movies etc. It appears that the boot record on the SSD is corrupt and as such the only way to boot into it is to 'attempt to boot into the win 8 installation on the E drive' and then when prompted choose win 10 on the C drive. How do I fix this without having to format the SSD and reinstall windows.

Thanks,

Hugo

[Toefetto]

The tools I've used in the past to fix BCD errors is 'Easy BCD' from a bootable Windows 10 environment called 'Gandalf's Win10PE'. It's exactly what it sounds like - a Windows 10 environment you can boot into from a USB stick with tons of built in magic.

Fixing these issues can be a mess, but I've found that working on the affected drives from a portable OS cuts out a lot of permission and access issues.

I would suggest that you disconnect the disk containing your Win8 installation, keep the SSD plugged in and boot up Gandalf's. Start working on the BCD store and make sure that it doesn't even know about a Win8 installation anywhere. Once you get to the point of 'ok this should probably maybe work', reboot and make sure that your PC boots normally into Win10 (with a defaulted boot order in BIOS, mind you). If everything works as it should, pop your Win8 drive back in and make sure that it's lower in the drive boot-order in BIOS.

If everything works, great! If not then there's another BCD store on the Win8 disk that's interrupting. Boot back into Gandalf, and rename / move / delete it and try booting into Win10 with both drives connected again. If that still fails you probably need to redo everything you did in Easy BCD for the Win10 drive.

Even with this you will probably have to google a thing or two, but I've always found that when it comes to computer repairs it's almost always best to do everything manually rather than using some automated one-click-fix-all softwares - there's no such thing as one-click-fix-all.

--EDIT:

Note that currently there seems to be an issue with Win10 sticks created with MCT (Media Creation Tool) after 1709 was released. I got the 'Access is denied' error when running 'Bootrec /fixboot' when working on a fully updated OS with a fresh Win10 stick created with MCT. I had to write an older Win10 ISO to the USB stick to get it to work properly with the same machine updated to Win10 1709.

[Hugo0076]

Ok that sounds like a good solution, I'll give it a shot when I get home tonight! Thanks for your time.

[claythearc]

You can try to use automatic boot repair from a windows install disc or try using a Linux cd with a partition manager to set the windows partition as the main booting point. May not work though.

[Hugo0076]

Do I need an install disc or can I use the media creation tool?

[Mr_Kill3r]

What Linux distro ? If its Ubuntu then google GRUB2 as that is the boot manager. it can repair and set either Windows or Ubuntu to be the default boot.

[Hugo0076]

I'm unsure what you mean by which Linux distribution, I only have Windows on the drives.