Bootmanager for Win8 located on non exisitant Drive!

My PC boots fine with the Win8 DVD in the DVD drive. Win8 Duel Boot manager even works fine.

However take the Win8 DVD out and the PC won't boot. Get an error saying the boot manager is missing etc.,

Below is the config along with the detailed version:

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

Default: Windows 8
Timeout: 3 seconds
Boot Drive: M:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 8
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 7 Sp1
BCD ID: {default}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Windows XP Sp3
BCD ID: {04fa55a6-e3fe-11e0-a126-9fbc09aaaa74}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\ntldr

---------


Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device partition=M:
description Windows Boot Manager
locale en-GB
inherit {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
integrityservices Enable
default {55b52c73-5b64-11e2-b2b0-9050ec6e8910}
resumeobject {55b52c72-5b64-11e2-b2b0-9050ec6e8910}
displayorder {55b52c73-5b64-11e2-b2b0-9050ec6e8910}
{55b52c73-5b64-11e2-b2b0-9050ec6e8910}
{04fa55a6-e3fe-11e0-a126-9fbc09aaaa74}
toolsdisplayorder {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout 3
displaybootmenu Yes

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {55b52c73-5b64-11e2-b2b0-9050ec6e8910}
device partition=C:
path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
description Windows 7 Sp1
locale en-GB
inherit {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence {04fa55aa-e3fe-11e0-a126-9fbc09aaaa74}
integrityservices Enable
recoveryenabled Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {55b52c72-5b64-11e2-b2b0-9050ec6e8910}
nx OptIn
bootmenupolicy Standard

Real-mode Boot Sector
---------------------
identifier {04fa55a6-e3fe-11e0-a126-9fbc09aaaa74}
device partition=D:
path \NST\ntldr
description Windows XP Sp3
locale en-US


The DVD drive is "G" I have a media drive which is on a RAID 0+1 which is "M" but has no OS on it. When installing teh Win8 OS this drive although it showed up in disk management it had not been assigned a drive letter. I assigned "M" and thus became visible in Explorer.

If I cange the drive letter of "M" to anything else then the bootmanager drive locations also changes!!!!

I can find no way to edit that "M" drive out of the default even though it says the Winloader is on C!!!!!!

Its almost as if the PC is seeing the G drive as the M drive. I have tried renaming the drives but doest matter what I call them a "Ghost" drive letter always appears for the boot manager.

Im sure if I can correct the M drive entry it will boot fine without the DVD. Ive used BCDedit and EASyBCD 2.2 but to no avail. TRied changing the order or boots defaults etc., nothing.

Hope someone can shed some light on this
 
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You just need to change the BIOS HDD boot sequence to put your SSD at the top.
When you boot without the DVD, you're trying to boot the media backup HDD, hence it can't find W8 bootmgr
 
Thank you. your suggestion inadvertantly caused me to make a mistake :smile: I wrongly changed the order of one of the RAID drives so the PC would no longer even enter the BIOS!!

This caused me to reset the BIOS take out the MSI 6Gb PCI SATA 3 card which the boot HDD was booting through and prevents the PC starting until you have sorted the settings in the BIOS!! Then after 3 setting changes in teh BIOS and putting the MSI card back in low and behold it now boots with out the Win8 DVD in the CDrom.

What is strange is the BCD has changed but only the OS names!!!

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

Default: Windows 8
Timeout: 3 seconds
Boot Drive: W:\

Entry #1
Name: Windows 8
BCD ID: {current}
Drive: C:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #2
Name: Windows 7
BCD ID: {04fa55a7-e3fe-11e0-a126-9fbc09aaaa74}
Drive: F:\
Bootloader Path: \Windows\system32\winload.exe

Entry #3
Name: Windows XP
BCD ID: {04fa55a6-e3fe-11e0-a126-9fbc09aaaa74}
Drive: D:\
Bootloader Path: \NST\ntldr

I think the MSI card must have been some how blocking the boot process and taking it out and putting it back in somehow reset everything.

ANyway thank you for your help and next time I perhaps won't be so careful when changing the BIOS settings :wink:

One other thing I no longer have the nice Win8 Duel boot screen but that I can live with out.
 
You still appear to have W at the top of the HDD boot sequence (hence listed as the boot disk), but now you seem to be accessing a BCD on that drive (hence the different OS names).
Have a look at Disk Management now and see where "system" is.
When you are successfully booting from the SSD, W8 on that drive will be all of "system" "boot" and "active".
Check first (make sure folder options are set like this or you won't find anything) whether there's a \boot folder and a bootmgr file on the W8 C Disk.
If you can't see them on W8 but you can see them on W, post back.
 
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I imagine that when you installed W7, it placed its boot files in the active partition on the first HDD. (they can't go in a logical drive).
That's what you're currently booting from, though it should not be capable of loading W8 (invalid signature on W8 loader as far as W7 is concerned because it's too new).
If it is booting W8, then I assume that at some point you've upgraded the bootmgr on W to the W8 version. It isn't visible in your screenshot so I can't see its size. Is it 389k (W8) or 375k (W7) ?
Nevertheless, what you still need to do is change the BIOS boot sequence to put your SSD before the HDDs.
Don't change any other BIOS details.
It's just the "boot" page, and then drill down to the HDD section and use the up/down arrows to change the relative positions.
 
On HDD "W" and SSD "C" they are both 389k. I didn't upgrade the bootmgr its seems to have done this itself!.

The moment I change the boot order of the SSD to being infront of the HDD I get the /boot/bcd is missing error.
 
Hi Sorry for delay in replying. It all went wrong for some reason. However I am now back to where I was before.

When changing the boot drive the W drive has a * beside it(see image) does this denote that its got the bootmgr there?

BCD.jpg

Below is the current HDD boot order in the bios

20130121_134937.jpg

When the RAID-1 is put to the top the boot fails with /boot/bcd missing.

20130121_135217.jpg
 
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Hi

I don't know why its shows as a Raid, there is only one SSD disk. Its not set as RAID in the bios. The drives in RAID are two HDD of 500GB a piece. Only Sata 1 and 2 are RAID'd, which are both on 500GB drives. SATA 3/4/5/6 are all standard SATA.
 
Well that's the BIOS showing the SSD as RAID in your screenshot, so I imagine if you sort out where that originates and fix it, all your problems will go away.
Any chance you plugged things back on different SATA channels on the mobo and got the SSD and one of your RAID array mixed up ? Maybe that's the reason for the phantom drive in your OP.
 
similar problem.

I hope it's ok to post this here. If no then please let me know. I have a very similar problem that's noted in this thread. I currently have a multi boot system with...Win 7 (MBR, Disk 0) and win 8 (GPT, Disk 4). I just noticed that the "Enter" key will not do a carriage return in this message so I apologize for the formatting. At any rate...the win 7 drive is the system disk and I want to be able to eliminate that drive but I can't boot without it being installed. I tried using the easybcd's 'change boot drive' but it says it can't do it because the partition has to be 'primary'. So apparently easybcd can't make a gpt disk bootable? Thanks for any help u can provide.
Basically I just want the win ssd drive to be my System disk and NOT the win 7ssd.
Addendum

Here's my system

Capture.PNG
 
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