EasyBCD2.4 with 3 OS partitions

cscs

Member
Currently I have EasyBCD installed with 3 OS partitions as following:.
1. Boot partition,, 500MB set to active.
2. Win 7
3. Win10 (install with EasyBCD)
4. Win 7 test
At boot, I have Win7/Win10/Win 7 test as customized with EasyBCD for selection.

I decided to forgo Win7 and Win7 test partition. So I use a partition utility to set Win10 partition as active.
However I get a boot failure message.

Do I always has to depend of the 500MB boot partition to boot Win 10 with EasyBCD installed?
 
When you install a newer version of Windows, it will auto-dual boot itself with an existing older version, by using the current active partition and updating the bootmgr to the later level. i.e. the old version's boot partition continues to be necessary even if you don't want the old Windows.
EasyBCD can help
 
I Try it out, but seem not working. I am using EasyBCD v2.4.
Original:
1. Boot (500M), drive B, as assigned in my Win10 partition
2. Wind 7, assigned as drive W
3. Win10, assigned as drive C (boot by default)
4. Win 7 test, assigned as drive Y

At activating the option change boot drive, I change from B to C as new boot drive.
I get the information message confirming the above action. Before I reboot, I checked but seem the active partition remain as "Boot" drive.

Default: Windows 10
Timeout: 10 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: B:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {84e79a50-232f-11eb-86bf-001986002b48}
Drive: W:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 10
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Windows 7 T450
BCD ID: {833c27bb-2332-11eb-86c0-001986002b48}
Drive: Y:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe
 
Did you note that if you are changing he boot drive to a different HDD, you will need to update your BIOS to boot from the new drive ?
EasyBCD can switch active flags if only one drive is involved but it can't play around with your BIOS.
 
Did you note that if you are changing he boot drive to a different HDD, you will need to update your BIOS to boot from the new drive ?
EasyBCD can switch active flags if only one drive is involved but it can't play around with your BIOS.

No, is the same drive (SSD), just different partition. Both drive B and C is on the same drive.
 
I attached screenshot of my first 2 disks. Not sure it will come out in this post.
 

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Could you use MS Disk Management, not a 3rd party app. They don't show what I want to see.
Make sure the status column is wide enough to show all the flags
 
Last edited:
Could you use MS Disk Management, not a 3rd party app. They don't show what I want to see.
Make sure the status column is wide enough to show all the flags
Hi, That's from MS disk management. Control panel - System and security - Adm tools - computer management.
May be you are referring to non graphical portion as following: (2nd picture has the drive B, which is on the same SSD disk).
 

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Hi, That's from MS disk management. Control panel - System and security - Adm tools - computer management.
May be you are referring to non graphical portion as following: (2nd picture has the drive B, which is on the same SSD disk).
This is take via Acronis disk director:
 

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EFI System Partition indicates you're on a UEFI PC.
"Active" is an indication to the legacy MBR BIOS where to find the boot files in the MBR partition table, It has no meaning in UEFI which requires (and always boots from) the EFI System Partition.
On a UEFI PC you can't change the location of the boot files (except by booting from another drive which also has an EFI SP)
btw That first screenshot isn't MS DM which always includes staus flags, even in the graphic section
DM.JPG
 
Thank for the update. My PC is boot for legacy BIOS mode.
The 500M partition was previously a NTFS partition. I though that was a problem so I used a a disk director utility to change it to UEFI partition type.
Now I change it back to NTFS file system. Waiting for backup to complete before I can give it a try.

Not sure why my DM screen came up different from you have have expected. Anyway, I give it a try after backup is been completed.
 

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After doing a backup, boot partition change to NTFS partition type. I tried with following 3 option but all failed:
(1) Change boot drive B->C
Failed. C partition did not set to become active partition.
(2) Did a reset BCD configuration, then perform change boot drive B->C option.
Notice C partition become active.
When reboot, I get message ....boot file missing, boot configuration data file does not contain valid .....
(3) 3rd try after system restored. Reset BCD config, Change boot drive B-> (notice C drive become active as (2),
Re-create/repair boot files.
At reboot, I get same error boot message as (2)
 
Resetting the BCD is only for when it's been corrupted, and will just give you a good (but empty) BCD and you should have seen IN BIG SCARY FONT a warning NOT to boot your PC until you'd added entries for all OSs you want to boot.
You can verify that the copy boot files function worked by just checking the C drive for a C:\boot\BCD.
It should also normally reset the active flag for you but maybe that bit failed if you've been been manually customizing MBR partititions.
Just check a BCD copy is on C (you can look inside it by EasyBCD > Files > Select BCD store to check all the entries are correct), then set the partition active in DM and try booting again.
 
Resetting the BCD is only for when it's been corrupted, and will just give you a good (but empty) BCD and you should have seen IN BIG SCARY FONT a warning NOT to boot your PC until you'd added entries for all OSs you want to boot.
You can verify that the copy boot files function worked by just checking the C drive for a C:\boot\BCD.
It should also normally reset the active flag for you but maybe that bit failed if you've been been manually customizing MBR partititions.
Just check a BCD copy is on C (you can look inside it by EasyBCD > Files > Select BCD store to check all the entries are correct), then set the partition active in DM and try booting again.
Seem my C drive does not have C:\Boot\BCD directory.
I try using File>Select BCD store and seem did not find any on drive B and C (my boot drive is currently with the 500M small partition).
However, under EasyBCD. I get following information with overview mode:

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

Default: Windows 10
Timeout: 10 seconds
EasyBCD Boot Device: B:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {84e79a50-232f-11eb-86bf-001986002b48}
Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume2
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 10
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Windows 7 T450
BCD ID: {833c27bb-2332-11eb-86c0-001986002b48}
Device: \Device\HarddiskVolume4
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Looks like all 3 of my OS partition is unable to boot standalone.
(Note: my Win7 partition has no drive letter assigned under Win10 partition).
 
Since the boot partition is on the same drive as the OS, I'm not quite sure why you want to get rid of it anyway. You'll just gain a small but practically unusable space in front of your OS(s).
That is the normal configuration for a Windows installation since Vista. That was the last version to place the boot files in with the OS.
Once Bitlocker was introduced, MS assumed that users would want to encrypt the OS so they separated the boot files to keep the PC from becoming unbootable with encrypted boot files.
 
Since the boot partition is on the same drive as the OS, I'm not quite sure why you want to get rid of it anyway. You'll just gain a small but practically unusable space in front of your OS(s).
That is the normal configuration for a Windows installation since Vista. That was the last version to place the boot files in with the OS.
Once Bitlocker was introduced, MS assumed that users would want to encrypt the OS so they separated the boot files to kepp the PC from becoming unbootable with encrypted boot files.
Yes, normal operation seem fine till I try to upgrade Win10 to Win11. For some reason, Win11 (free) upgrade does not like this type of setup.
 
Windows 11 requires UEFI and TPM 2.
You won't be able to upgrade on any PC that doesn't meet the minimum h/w requirements.
Even my 2014 UEFI PC is not (yet) eligible.
I say yet because I'm expecting that later builds might loosen the restrictions on using W11.
 
Windows 11 requires UEFI and TPM 2.
You won't be able to upgrade on any PC that doesn't meet the minimum h/w requirements.
Even my 2014 UEFI PC is not (yet) eligible.
I say yet because I'm expecting that later builds might loosen the restrictions on using W11.
My PC complied to 2 mentioned above.
It failed after it is about to reboot. Think is due to some boot configuration issue. Will have to try again to capture the error message.

(Strange enough, I can set my Win7 partition to active - after boot repair, boot to win 7, upgrade to win 10, then follow by upgrade to win 11 without issue. So problem is not the PC hardware. I could not do this with my Win 10 partition when I set the boot partition back to active)
 
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