sambul12
Distinguished Member
Is it possible to add Win10 hidden Recovery Partition boot entry to Win10 Boot Menu, if its missing? Or can it be automatically fixed any other way if the record is damaged? Without such fix, the Recovery Options don't show up in Windows Boot Menu - Advanced Settings GUI.
Recreating BCD with BCDBoot doesn't fix this. Such situation may occur when a disk or several bootable partitions, including the Recovery Partition, are backed up with some 3rd party tools like Acronis, and then restored to a different drive. The fix should not only add Win Recovery partition to Boot Menu, but also restore corresponding options in Graphical Boot Menu, relevant to system recovery.
I found this thread that outlines a partial solution: Add recovery partition to advance boot menu options :
"A recovery loader should be linked through RecoverySequence. The recovery loader itself should specify element "RecoveryOs".
These controls aren't accessible via EasyBCD, but this thread Rebuilding the BCD for the Recovery Partition suggests the workaround:
"Assign Recovery partition a letter in Windows Disk Management.
Then launch EasyBCD | Add/Remove Entries | WinPE
Point EasyBCD to that drive letter, and add it is an "Extracted Ramdisk" entry.
You should be able to boot into it with the newly-created EasyBCD menu entry."
Using both methods, its doubtful the System Restore options will show up in Win10 Bootloader Graphical Boot Menu, it will only show a choice to boot the Recovery partition. The complete solution will involve Fixing the Windows Bootloader via the setup DVD. Or, using ReAgentC.exe to add Win RE to Advanced Boot Options GUI. If Recovery partition is missing altogether, this article Restore Windows RE in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 explains how to re-create it.
So, I restored a Windows 10 backup drive to a different disk, and after that the Recovery partition was present, but the Recovery options were not accessible in Windows Advanced Boot Menu. After looking through all the above methods, and having no Win10 Install ISO at hand, I restored Recovery options by using Admin Command Prompt:
diskpart
list volume
select volume 2 (it was marked 512MB Hidden)
set id=07 (OR: set id=07 override - to mark it as regular NTFS data volume on MBR disk)
OR: set id=ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7 (mark it as NTFS data volume on GPT disk)
assign letter=E (OR: first run list volume & select volume again to see if its changed)
exit (exit Diskpart, or reboot and re-open Admin CMD)
Reagentc /info (output: "Recovery partition is Disabled")
Reagentc /enable (if no success, run: Reagentc /setreimage /path E:\Recovery\WindowsRE )
diskpart
list volume
select volume 2
remove letter=E
set id=27 (mark the volume back as Hidden Recovery Partition on MBR disk)
OR: set id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac (mark it back as Hidden Recovery partition on GPT disk)
exit
That's it! You can close Cmd Prompt and open Disk Management Console to see, the Recovery partition is still present and marked Hidden. Now right mouse click on Windows icon in Taskbar -> Shut Down or Sign Out -> Shift + Restart. It will open Windows Boot Menu, and you can verify that a range of Recovery Options is now restored and available from the Menu. Select "Boot to Command Prompt" and reboot to test, if they work.
Now I wonder, if its possible to add the option "Restore Recovery Options in Boot Menu" to EasyBCD next release? This issue is quite typical at disk restore from backup and other similar situations, given the number of Google hits.
Recreating BCD with BCDBoot doesn't fix this. Such situation may occur when a disk or several bootable partitions, including the Recovery Partition, are backed up with some 3rd party tools like Acronis, and then restored to a different drive. The fix should not only add Win Recovery partition to Boot Menu, but also restore corresponding options in Graphical Boot Menu, relevant to system recovery.
I found this thread that outlines a partial solution: Add recovery partition to advance boot menu options :
"A recovery loader should be linked through RecoverySequence. The recovery loader itself should specify element "RecoveryOs".
These controls aren't accessible via EasyBCD, but this thread Rebuilding the BCD for the Recovery Partition suggests the workaround:
"Assign Recovery partition a letter in Windows Disk Management.
Then launch EasyBCD | Add/Remove Entries | WinPE
Point EasyBCD to that drive letter, and add it is an "Extracted Ramdisk" entry.
You should be able to boot into it with the newly-created EasyBCD menu entry."
Using both methods, its doubtful the System Restore options will show up in Win10 Bootloader Graphical Boot Menu, it will only show a choice to boot the Recovery partition. The complete solution will involve Fixing the Windows Bootloader via the setup DVD. Or, using ReAgentC.exe to add Win RE to Advanced Boot Options GUI. If Recovery partition is missing altogether, this article Restore Windows RE in Windows 7, 8, 8.1 and 10 explains how to re-create it.
So, I restored a Windows 10 backup drive to a different disk, and after that the Recovery partition was present, but the Recovery options were not accessible in Windows Advanced Boot Menu. After looking through all the above methods, and having no Win10 Install ISO at hand, I restored Recovery options by using Admin Command Prompt:
diskpart
list volume
select volume 2 (it was marked 512MB Hidden)
set id=07 (OR: set id=07 override - to mark it as regular NTFS data volume on MBR disk)
OR: set id=ebd0a0a2-b9e5-4433-87c0-68b6b72699c7 (mark it as NTFS data volume on GPT disk)
assign letter=E (OR: first run list volume & select volume again to see if its changed)
exit (exit Diskpart, or reboot and re-open Admin CMD)
Reagentc /info (output: "Recovery partition is Disabled")
Reagentc /enable (if no success, run: Reagentc /setreimage /path E:\Recovery\WindowsRE )
diskpart
list volume
select volume 2
remove letter=E
set id=27 (mark the volume back as Hidden Recovery Partition on MBR disk)
OR: set id=de94bba4-06d1-4d40-a16a-bfd50179d6ac (mark it back as Hidden Recovery partition on GPT disk)
exit
That's it! You can close Cmd Prompt and open Disk Management Console to see, the Recovery partition is still present and marked Hidden. Now right mouse click on Windows icon in Taskbar -> Shut Down or Sign Out -> Shift + Restart. It will open Windows Boot Menu, and you can verify that a range of Recovery Options is now restored and available from the Menu. Select "Boot to Command Prompt" and reboot to test, if they work.
Now I wonder, if its possible to add the option "Restore Recovery Options in Boot Menu" to EasyBCD next release? This issue is quite typical at disk restore from backup and other similar situations, given the number of Google hits.
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