Confusion over HarddiskVolume

I have been trying to understand the HarddiskVolume number. I would like to be able to look at a Disk Management window and know for sure which partitions go with volume numbers.

My confusion comes from using Diskpart to list the volumes and comparing that to Disk Management in UEFI and MBR systems.

The drives both have a System partition (EFI on one) and an OS partition. When I look at an MBR system, Diskpart says the first partition is Volume 1 and Volume 2 is the second partition. As I would think it should be.

When I look at a UEFI install, Diskpart says the OS partition (2nd) is volume 1 and the EFI partition (1st) is Volume 2.

Basically they are reversed in Diskpart for each system.

So, is Diskpart not a good indication of which partition would be which HarddiskVolume? The BCD Store Boot manager entry would seem to disagree with Diskpart..

Thanks, this isn't an emergency, just messing around....

DISKPART> lis vol

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- -------
Volume 0 E DVD-ROM 0 B No Media
Volume 1 C Windows 8 NTFS Partition 129 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 2 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System


Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
path \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description Windows 8
locale en-US
inherit {globalsettings}
default {current}
resumeobject {ad1dedf7-f558-11e1-ab68-ee7363c89488}
displayorder {current}
toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}
timeout 30

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {current}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description Windows 8
locale en-US
inherit {bootloadersettings}
recoverysequence {ad1dedf9-f558-11e1-ab68-ee7363c89488}
recoveryenabled Yes
isolatedcontext Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {ad1dedf7-f558-11e1-ab68-ee7363c89488}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard

I think I am starting to figure it out. The Diskpart List Partition for each drive is the best way, the List volume just seems to show drive letters.

I also now understand, because of the hidden reserve partition on GPT drives, it might be impossible to tell from just looking at the Disk Management window how the HarddiskVolumes would be numbered. I have now seen both a reserved partition and EFI system partition even after the OS partition.

Thanks, learning isn't always easy...

UEFI is a completely different beast, the concept of bootsectors does not apply. The "BIOS" of a UEFI machine (such as it is) will seek out the bootloader file and run it directly.

Be sure to use EasyBCD 2.2 beta on any UEFI machines. 2.1 does not understand UEFI.

The question was not really an EasyBCD question, just mine. It was one of those areas I wasn't familiar with, but now I think I am.

I am sure EasyBCD uses software to determine where the System partitions are, be they MBR or EFI versions. Glad to see you have decided to get into the UEFI arena..

The "BIOS" of a UEFI machine (such as it is) will seek out the bootloader file and run it directly.

Click to expand...

I think the problems I have seen is it not finding the correct boot manager. The fact the system can change the location of the bootmgfw.efi file, has caused some problems, and I have seen some strange things. Probably because I test different configurations, but I had not yet figured out the logical process the EFI firmware uses to locate and designate a device partition for the bootmgfw.efi file.

I did notice Windows 8 has added some options to the bcdboot command that Windows 7 does not have.

Saltgrass said:

I would like to be able to look at a Disk Management window and know for sure which partitions go with volume numbers

Click to expand...

Disk Management won't help with this, neither will DiskPart. Try DriveLetterView. Or, if you want just to find out where your system BCD store is take a look at \REGISTRY\MACHINE\BCD00000000 value in HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\CurrentControlSet\Control\hivelist registry key.

4 year old thread, locking.