EasyBCD from CD/DVD or USB

B

borate

Member
Scanned the forum and HELP files but perhaps overlooked this query...

How can BCD be written to bootable CD/DVD or USB media so it can be brought up from the BIOS?

I assume that when this is accomplished, one can then "write MBR" to restore a hosed Master Boot
Record that is preventing W7 or W8 from booting or repairing itself from the install DVD. True?

Gracias
 
Last edited:
Terry60 said:
EasyBCD is a Windows application. You must have one working copy of Windows to use it.
Recovering the Windows Bootloader with EasyBCD - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
If you don't have a working Windows
Recovering the Windows Bootloader from the DVD - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
Click to expand...

Thanks for your speedy follow up. Indeed, one of your suggestions did the deed.
Kindly enlighten me on how I utilized BCD incorrectly, and prompted this failure...

This set up is dual-boot with Win 7 on a SSD and W8 on an SATA drive. Booting was not as efficient as I believed
it should be, so in BCD both O/S were deleted. When the warning prompted to add at least one, lest the system
would not boot, I added them both to what I perceived to be identical to the original configuration.

Then neither system would boot. The W8 install disc could not make repairs, but the W7 one did. Now boot up
is as it should be. Please advise on the error of my ways.
 
Last edited:
Well, mistake number one was in deleting and re-adding the BCD entries.
They're either correct or they're wrong. If both systems booted then they were both OK. If you wanted a faster boot, nothing you did to the BCD entries (except reduce the timeout value to reduce waiting time before the default system is chosen) would have affected the efficiency of the boot.
There are many things you can do to speed up a tardy boot, but changing the BCD isn't one of them. It does not contain any tuning options, just maps the locations of the boot choices.
I can't tell why your new entries failed without knowing your system, and the precise entries you made.
I can speculate on what you might have done wrong, and the most likely cause would be wrongly identifying the location of each system.
There are no disk letters in the BCD. It uses UIDs which describe the position using a combination of disk signature and the start address of the partition boundary. That results in user-unfriendly near-unintelligible strings, which would be very difficult to remember and enter. For that reason, EasyBCD translates the strings into the familiar disk letter when displaying the information to you, and allows you to tell it the location the same way and translates that into the long string for you.
This means that EasyBCD translates the letters according to the registry of the system you are running it on. (Disk letters aren't real, just OS registry entries). That means that if you are on W7, you must tell it the letter for W8 as W7 sees it, not as W8 will see itself.
 
Terry60 said:
> There are many things you can do to speed up a tardy boot, but changing the BCD isn't one of them. It does not contain any tuning options, just maps the locations of the boot choices.

Totally understood. I should have been more precise. Boot speed was not the issue. While in Win 8, the PC was SHUT DOWN normally. When powered up it would briefly display the Win 8
logo, then reboot. Next it would momentarily display the Win 8-style multi-boot menu (boxes on a blue background) - which flashed off before an O/S choice could be made. And the PC
would boot into W7. A RESTART offerred the usual DOS-screen choice of systems, and Windows 8 could be successfully launched.

After the Win 7 CD disc repair was made, powering up after a Win 8 shutdown goes through POST, then boots directly into W8. No extra boot, no W7. This was my goal.
Perhaps rebuilding the MBR would have succeeded.

> This means that EasyBCD translates the letters according to the registry of the system you are running it on. (Disk letters aren't real, just OS registry entries).
> That means that if you are on W7, you must tell it the letter for W8 as W7 sees it, not as W8 will see itself.

When in W8 it is "C" and W7 is "J." When in Win 7, it's just the opposite. As I was in W8, I deleted both entries, then added them back specifying "C" for W8 and "J" for W7. Each O/S
purposely sees the other. While I'm told that this may lead to problems, I have successfully used this unorthodox arrangement since early XP/W7 and value the utility that it offers.

Good utility, and gracias once again.
 
Last edited:
That was just my best guess for what you might have done but I'll take your word that you didn't.
In that case I've no idea what caused you a problem. It should have been straightforward.
The W8 boot is not really a boot, but a resumption from a secret hibernation, done (almost) without your knowledge.
In W8 Power options there's an "enable fast boot" option ticked by default. This is really "enable secret hibernation".
If you want your PC to really shutdown when you tell it to, then untick that option.
That's also the reason why you go round in circles back through the BIOS when you opt for W7 in the W8 boot menu.
It has to really shut down W8 from its hibernation and start again before it gets back to where you asked it for W7.
See here
Delivering fast boot times in Windows 8 - Building Windows 8 - Site Home - MSDN Blogs
 
I was aware of Fast Boot, but your comments added new insights. One niggling question remains re my botched BCD editing attempt...
In order to rebuild the MBR, would it have been appropriate to make that choice instead of deleting the individual entries?

Keep the scones coming.^ Appreciate your time.
 
Last edited:
When you say "rebuild the MBR" as opposed to "edit the BCD", I trust you didn't go into BCD deployment and "install Vista/7 boot loader" > Write MBR after adding your BCD entries ?.
None of the advanced options from "add new entry" down, are necessary for routine manipulation of the BCD. "Edit..." and "Add...." are all that's required.
Reinstalling the Vista/7 bootloader is an emergency-only one time option used only if your Vista/7/8 boot has been usurped by a poorly controlled Linux or XP installation and you need to get the MBR back to looking for bootmgr instead of NTLDR or grub.
If you used that when the Vista/7/8 was already in control, you will basically have reset the boot to square one with an empty BCD.
We've had users before get stuck in an infinite Add entry - Write MBR loop.
EasyBCD can be compared to regedit in that it is a power-user tool, capable of breaking your system as well as fixing it if you experiment with features you don't fully understand.
99% of users need never venture away from the first three functions.
Anything from Advanced options downwards should be used with extreme caution after reference to the wiki
EasyBCD Basics - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
and only if absolutely essential to repair a broken boot and completely understood.
 
Terry60 said:
When you say "rebuild the MBR" as opposed to "edit the BCD", I trust you didn't go into BCD deployment and "install Vista/7 boot loader" > Write MBR after adding your BCD entries ?.
Click to expand...

Thanks, Terry. No, didn't do that.

None of the advanced options from "add new entry" down, are necessary for routine manipulation of the BCD. "Edit..." and "Add...." are all that's required.
Click to expand...

Indeed. Likely where I went wrong for I DO vaguely recall that I may have invoked "recreate" in the BACKUP/REPAIR menu, which descriptively seemed to fit the intent. I looked, but didn't spot a direct reference to that entry in the Wiki.

99% of users need never venture away from the first three functions.
Anything from Advanced options downwards should be used with extreme caution after reference to the wiki
EasyBCD Basics - EasyBCD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
and only if absolutely essential to repair a broken boot and completely understood.
Click to expand...

Thinking back, the previously described odd boot behavior for Win 8 had only recently become evident. Perhaps this occurred because, several weeks ago, I turned on FAST BOOT, which had been disabled since day one because at that time it appeared to be hindering another process. Still, after the W7 disc boot repair, FAST BOOT remains on, and the boot to Win 8 no longer exhibits the double POST or quickly vanishing W8 dual-boot menu mentioned earlier.
 
Back
Top