Multi boot win8

K

KLund1

Member
I still can not boot to win 8. I've posted several posts here and elsewhere, and have tried solutions suggest by those helpful replies. Still not joy. So here is another attempt. I can not get to win 8 after the first reboot after install of win 8 on a separate partition. I get the dreaded:
\windows\system32\winload.exe
0xc0000428
windows can not verify digital signature of this file.
Though I do not know on which drive it is looking for it.

So first pic is is my EasyBcd 2.2 boot menu from my main win7 SSD boot I use most.
Capture 1.JPG
pic 2 is my drive layout from the same SSD win7 boot
Capture2.JPG
One suggestion I got here was this helpful reply:
"You could boot up the install disc - go to Repair my computer , then command prompt ( under advanced options) use note pad or diskpart to find what the win8 install partition drive letter is.
Also find the active partition drive letter.
Active partition might be the 100mb one because you had win7 first - if so , give it a drive letter using diskpart.
Then type:
bcdboot win8letter:\windows /s activepartletter:"

The drive letters change when I get into the win8 repair screen. G: becomes H:, K: becomes C:
So I did moved to h: and did bcdboot H:\windows /s C: then rebooted and no win 8 same error as above. Then back backing to the repair screen and moved to c: and type the same, and no win8 same error.
Win 7 SSD, Win 7 HHD, Linux boot properly, XP does not boot, but that it for a later repair.
Any suggestions, or more info you may need to help me out with this?
Thanks
 
Vista bootmgr cannot boot W7/8, W7 bootmgr cannot boot W8.
The invalid dig sig, is because MS checks whether the boot loader is genuine, and anything newer than itself will naturally be unrecognized. (Well, not naturally perhaps, MS could easily code it differently, but the point is - they haven't)
The assumption is that you will install OSs chronologically replacing/adding to Vista with W7, and thence W8. At each new reinstall, the new OS will detect the earlier OS(s) and "take over" the boot management, replacing the earlier bootmgr with the latest version.
This is backwards compatible and obviously knows all about the earlier dig sigs.
If you install in any other way (7 after 8, separate HDDs, later system not seeing earlier, or whatever) you'll get the problem you're experiencing.
The solution is to boot W7 from W8, not W8 from W7, or you can replicate what a "normal" install would have done, and replace the copy of bootmgr on W7 with the one from W8.
 
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Thanks for the reply.
I seem to remember that fact. But I installed win8 from media, as a fresh install. I did not start the install from within win7.
Where would the bootmgr.??? file in win8 be located? and where would I put it so that could boot to both win 7 and win 8? can EasyBCD program be helpful here?
Also I'm not sure that win8 can deal with my PCI SSD Revodrive V1. I loaded latest Revo drivers during the win8 install process when selecting drive partition to install from, and win8 did see the SSD, but I installed on a HHD partition.
I'm defiantly not an expert and any of this boot process, but I'm learning. And I believe there may be several issues occurring at the same time causing a no win8 boot result. I used the same install process with win8 DP, CP and it worked ok, But RP, and Enterprise are causing me the above difficulty. I have not done any hardware changes in the last year.
suggestions as to a step by step process to try and create a remedy?
Thanks again
 
Start by setting folder options thus (or you won't see any of the super-hidden boot files) and look in all of your partitions for x:\boot folder (which contains the BCD) and x:\bootmgr
On W7 they'll be in whichever partition is flagged "system" in Disk Management. (ditto on W8 if you were able to boot it to see where "system" is).
If you find another set, that should be the partition from which you can boot W8 by setting the HDD which contains the partition at a higher priority in the BIOS boot sequence than W7's HDD, and checking that the boot files partition (not necessarily the W8 "C" disk) is also set "active"
As a double check W7 bootmgr = 375Kb and W8 bootmgr = 389Kb
 
Thanks for the quick reply again
Looking from win7 SSD, K: has bootmgr at 389KB (win8), This is on the HD, and is an active primary partition.
C: SSD (win7) also has Bootmgr at 375KB (win7 ssd) and is active and is a boot partition.
Should I copy the win8 bootmgr from K: to C: ?
Currently my SSD is the first drive the BIOS looks for, then it looks at the HDD. I have no idea on which drive the MBR is on. If I change the BIOS first drive to HDD, won't is skip that drive if the MBR is not on it? CAN you tell fro the above drive configuration where the MBR is located? Or am I going off in the wrong direction?

update: just changed first boot drive to HHD, and I got a nice win8 blue version of the same boot error above.
Thanks again :smile:
 
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You will have better performance if you boot via the SSD, so copying the W8 bootmgr to W7 (rename the W7 version to ...old first for safety in case you need to reverse the change), would be a good move.
Don't quite understand your last sentence. The text and the smiley seem contradictory. Are you saying that W8 manager won't accept its own loader ?
 
Thanks again your helping out with this.
About the update.
I did not change or move any bootmgr files. I jest change the order of which drive the BIOS looks at forst to boot from. I changed from the 1st boot drive SSD to first boot drive as the HHD. The system booted directly to Win8. I did not get the easyBCD menu. It showed that same error message list in post 1 but in a pretty blue screen instead of black. Then rebooted, changed boot drive order to get back to win7 on from my SSD.
 
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