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.
The only thing I see that interests me there is
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.
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.
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.