Multi-boot system - Windows 8 not booting anymore

danblake

Member
Hi All,

I have a Thinkpad x220t that had Windows 8 Enterprise, OpenSUSE 12.2 & Haiku A4.1 all booting and running fine. 3 days ago I downloaded and installed OpenSUSE 12.3. I did a fresh install instead of an upgrade because they are a cleaner install. After the OpenSUSE install Windows 8 would no longer boot. All I get is a blinking underscore _. With the Extended partition having the BOOT flag I get the GRUB2 boot menu and I can boot OpenSUSE 12.3 and Haiku. If I put the BOOT flag on the Windows 8 NTFS partition all I get is a blinking underscore _.

Single HD system.
MBR not UEFI.
Windows is a single partition install and does not have the RESERVED PARTITION. I have been dealing with multi-boot system for over 15 years now and I didn't want that little partition taking a primary partition from me. We can only have 4 of the little buggers so they can't have one.

I started out using Auto Repair. Nope, didn't fix it.
Then bcdedit /fixmbr & bcdedit /fixboot. Still no go.

Diskpart lists them in this order:
Partition 0 is the Extended
Partition 1 is NTFS
Partition 2 is beOS FS (Haiku)
Partition 3 is Linux swap
Partition 4 is ext4

Gparted lists them this way:
sda1 NTFS
sda2 extended
sda3 unknown (it's the BeOS partition)
sda5 Linux-swap
sda6 ext4


Here are my last 2 attempts at getting Windows booting again.


Code:
Microsoft DiskPart version 6.2.9200

 Copyright (C) 1999-2012 Microsoft Corporation.
 On computer: MININT-PDBARJH

 DISKPART> list disk

   Disk ###  Status         Size     Free     Dyn  Gpt
   --------  -------------  -------  -------  ---  ---
  Disk 0    Online          298 GB  1024 KB
   Disk 1    Online           29 GB      0 B

 DISKPART> select disk 0

 Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

 DISKPART> list vol

   Volume ###  Ltr  Label        Fs     Type        Size     Status     Info
   ----------  ---  -----------  -----  ----------  -------  ---------  --------
  Volume 0     E   HRM_CENA_X6  UDF    DVD-ROM     3329 MB  Healthy
   Volume 1     C                NTFS   Partition    150 GB  Healthy
   Volume 2     D   SARDU        FAT32  Removable     29 GB  Healthy

 DISKPART> list part

   Partition ###  Type              Size     Offset
   -------------  ----------------  -------  -------
  Partition 1    Primary            150 GB  1024 KB
   Partition 0    Extended            60 GB   150 GB
   Partition 3    Logical           2051 MB   150 GB
   Partition 4    Logical             57 GB   152 GB
   Partition 2    Primary             88 GB   210 GB

 DISKPART> select partition 1

 Partition 1 is now the selected partition.

 DISKPART> active

 DiskPart marked the current partition as active.



 C:\Windows>bcdedit /v

 Windows Boot Manager
 --------------------
 identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
 device                  partition=C:
 path                    \bootmgr
 description             Windows Boot Manager
 default                 {44b37dc2-962a-11e2-bbb4-fd5664597b1c}
 displayorder            {44b37dc2-962a-11e2-bbb4-fd5664597b1c}
 bootsequence            {44b37dc2-962a-11e2-bbb4-fd5664597b1c}
 timeout                 10

 Windows Boot Loader
 -------------------
 identifier              {44b37dc2-962a-11e2-bbb4-fd5664597b1c}
 device                  partition=C:
 path                    \Windows\system32\winload.exe
 description             Windows 8 Enterprise
 locale                  en-US
 recoverysequence        {44b37dc3-962a-11e2-bbb4-fd5664597b1c}
 recoveryenabled         Yes
 osdevice                partition=C:
 systemroot              \Windows
 bootmenupolicy          Standard

 C:\Windows>bootsect /nt60 c: /mbr
 Target volumes will be updated with BOOTMGR compatible bootcode.

 C: (\\?\Volume{6291a0d3-964b-11e2-b12e-806e6f6e6963})

     Updated NTFS filesystem bootcode.  The update may be unreliable since the
     volume could not be locked during the update:
         Access is denied.

 \??\PhysicalDrive0

     Successfully updated disk bootcode.

 Bootcode was successfully updated on all targeted volumes.

The only thing I see that interests me there is
Updated NTFS filesystem bootcode. The update may be unreliable since the volume could not be locked during the update:
Access is denied.


Nothing changed, I still get the blinking underscore _.

On to more brute force boot record fixing...

Boot from my Windows 8 Enterprise DVD and get to the Command Prompt.

Code:
C:\>attrib -h -s c:\boot\BCD

 C:\>del c:\boot\BCD

 C:\>bcdedit /createstore c:\boot\bcd.temp
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd.temp /create {bootmgr} /d "Windows Boot Manager"
 The entry {bootmgr} was successfully created.

 C:\>bcdedit /import c:\boot\bcd.temp
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /set {bootmgr} device partition=c:
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /timeout 10
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>attrib -h -s c:\boot\bcd.temp

 C:\>del c:\boot\bcd.temp

 C:\>bcdedit /create /d "Microsoft Windows 8 Enterprise" /application osloader
 The entry {5b584ba7-9665-11e2-b2fb-a10c734d5fe2} was successfully created.

 C:\>bcdedit /set {5b584ba7-9665-11e2-b2fb-a10c734d5fe2} device partition=c:
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /set {5b584ba7-9665-11e2-b2fb-a10c734d5fe2} osdevice partition=c:
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /set {5b584ba7-9665-11e2-b2fb-a10c734d5fe2} path \Windows\system32\winload.exe
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /set {5b584ba7-9665-11e2-b2fb-a10c734d5fe2} systemroot \Windows
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>bcdedit /displayorder {5b584ba7-9665-11e2-b2fb-a10c734d5fe2}
 The operation completed successfully.

 C:\>

I am still only getting the accursed underscore _!

I would just format the NTFS partition and reinstall Windows 8 but I am wondering how this is even possible. So I came here to present my new found conundrum.
 
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