In this article we will learn how to repair Windows 8 bootloader on a computer with UEFI. The corruption of the Windows 8 bootloader can occur after the installation of the second OS (in Dual Boot configurations), be caused by the erroneous actions while failure recovering and for some other reasons. If the loader in Windows 8 on UEFI system is corrupted, it’s impossible to start the system or a blue screen with the following error appears:
All this can imply corruption or even total removal of Windows 8 loader configuration – Boot Configuration Data (BCD). You won’t be able to recover the BCD loader using bcdedit. When running this command, the following error appears:
The matter is that the BCD loader configuration in Windows 8 installed in UEFI mode is stored on a separate hidden EFI volume (100 MB in size on FAT32 file system). Bcdedit can not see it and, therefore, manage the loader configuration on it.
So to recover the loader (BCD) configuration, you have to boot from the original installation Windows 8 DVD (or a recovery disk or a special EFI bootable flash drive) and open the command line choosing System Restore – > Troubleshoot-> Command Prompt or pressing Shift+F10).
Start diskpart:
1 |
diskpart |
Display the list of disks in the system:
1 |
list disk
|
Select the disk with Windows 8 installed (if there is one disk in the system, it will have zero index):
1 |
sel disk 0
|
Display the list of volumes in the system:
1 |
list vol
|
In this example, you can see that the EFI volume (it can easily be recognized by its size of 100 MB and FAT32 file system) has the index volume 1, and the boot volume with Windows 8 installed is volume 3.
Assign any disk letter to the EFI volume:
1 |
select volume 1
|
1 |
assign letter K:
|
Close diskpart:
1 |
exit
|
Go to the bootloader directory in the hidden volume
1 |
cd /d k:\efi\microsoft\boot\ |
Recreate the boot sector on the boot partition
1 |
bootrec /fixboot
|
Delete the current BCD configuration file by renaming it (save the older configuration as a backup):
1 |
ren BCD BCD.bak
|
With bcdboot.exe, create BCD store again by copying the boot files from the system directory:
1 |
bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-us /s k: /f ALL |
where C:\Windows – is the path to the directory with Windows 8 installed.
/f ALL – means that the boot files have to be copied including those for UEFI and BIOS computers (potential ability to boot in EFI and BIOS systems)
/l en-us – is a type of the system locale. By default, en-us – English (USA) is used.
Now you have to restart your computer. Then in the list of bootable devices there appears Windows Boot Manager where you can choose desired operating system to start.
Thanks. It helped me well!
Hello, I get everything ok, respecting all spaces and / \ positions, and get stuck here: ( I assigned letter “i” instead of “k”)
i:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot>ren BCD BCD.bak
The system can not find the file specified
ren BCD BCD.bak need to back up current BCD config.
In your case probably BCD has already been deleted. Follow the next step – where it is recreated.
Thank you for the quick reply! On the next step, skipping the previous, I get this message:
“Failure when attempting to copy boot files”
I’m doing this using the built in recovery tools inside a HP All in one 20-b323w, and using the recovery inside a usb uefi drive with Windows 8 64 bit in it.
Here’s a picture: http://i.imgur.com/2rmM2CT.jpg
Thank you for your help!!!
I got that error too at first. Try the next FAT32 drive. Assign it a different letter and trust me it will work.
I`m trying to replace a linux i guess this won`t work for me !
You have an error in the syntax of windir path
Try specify path c:\windows instead c:windows
I followed the steps but in the last step i get this message:
BFSVC Error: Could not open the BCD template store. Status = [c000000f]
Any ideas?
Please disregard my previus comment. The issue was solved by replacing / with \ on the last command!!!
At first i wrote bcdboot c:/windows /l en-us /s /k: /f ALL instead of bcdboot c:\windows /l en-us /s /k: /f ALL
Even a wrong backslash counts!!!
For a moment I thought I would never be able to bring my laptop back to life again, but this page helped me to fix the problem. Just needed to change the language in the syntax to nl-NL and find the right volume and file (was 300MB in my case, but also a FAT32, also slighly different name of the BCD-file). Thanks a lot!
Hey guy.. Thanks a lot.. It’ve worked for me.
Hello, I followed your guide and seems like it would work great but I have a slight issue. I have tried to dual boot my computer which worked until Windows 8 had to update and I updated it while I was sleeping and now it will not boot up. When I list the volumes I get the following
“DVD rom – UDF
System Reset – NTFS
Windows 8 – NTFS
Windows 7 – NTFS
Random Item (other harddrive for storage ) – NTFS”
I get nothing else I do not have the bootstrap or FAT32 any suggestions? I no longer need the windows 7 So if I could get rid of it that would be great.
Repair bootloader this way and then delete Windows 7 boot entry with msconfig utility (fron win 8)
How would I rebair the boot without the FAT32?
How would i repair the boot without having the FAT32 reserve file on any of my harddrives?
I skipped the steps with the FAT 32 and got all the way until renaming BCD I fixed it and was successful but when I went to rename it access got denied. When I attempted to copy the boot files they also failed. Any other ideas?
First, check that your PC is support UEFI (this article is not applicable for BIOS systems).
Next, check you hard disk partition table style (list disk command in diskpart). It can be GPT (not MBR).
How to manually create partition for UEFI:https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/hh825686.aspx
Hi Max,
All went well until I got to: ren BCD BCD.bak
where I got the response: The request could not be performed because of an I/O device error.
Any Suggestions?
Viki
You BCD can be broken. Skip this step and move to the next, where you recreate BCD config.
hi, i have nearly the same problem, buti dont have that fat32 with 100 mb partition, it looks like this:
” – Smiley came, i cant start windows and then it restarts again, same blue screen with the unhappy smiley, collecting information again , restarting… and this repeats infinitly. hope you can help me, thanks
Vol 0 F Windows 8 UDF DVD-ROM 3623MB healthy (no info)
Vol 1 C Windows8_OS NTFS Partition 417GB healthy (no info)
Vol 2 D Lenovo NTFS Partition 25 GB healthy (no info)
Vol 3 WINRE_DRV NTFS Partition 1000MB healthy hidden
Vol 4 SYSTEM_DRV FAT32 Partition 260 MB healthy hidden
Vol 5 NTFS Partition 450MB healthy hidden
Vol 6 PBR_DRV NTFS Partition 20 GB healthy hidden
Vol 7 E USB DISK FAT32 Removable 7279MB healthy (no info)
Vol 8 LRS_ESP FAT32 Partition 1000MB healthy hidden
My english is not the best, in from germany, sorry, but i hope you can help me. i tried with vol 4 instead of your vol 1 and replaced the language to instead of en-us to de-de. i did anything u wrote and it seemed to do what it should. but when restarted my laptop, the same message with that “
Thank you very much. Works perfect. Made my day
Thanks for the detailed guide. I am getting the same error only difference being I am using Win 7. In my case the windows Installation media is not seeing my windows partition. (On clicking repair conputer the box is blank wheras ideally it should be showing the current installation path of Windows) What should I do ? In Linux I am able to access the win partition. Could this be due to wrong setting of boot flag? I had actually installed Linux first and then Win 7 . Both of them are in 2 different hard disks. When I installed Win 7 , I think the EFI folder used by linux was shared by windows and a separate partition was not created. So in this case , what should I do? – Reset the bootflag to Linux partition where EFI part resides and then make the changes you suggested here?
Hi I’m having problems as above – everything works up to bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-us /s k: /f ALL
“Then I get Failure when attempting to copy boot files.”
If I try it without the switches and only bcdboot c:\windows – then I get……
BFSVC Error: BcdOpenSystemStore failed with unexpected error code, Status = [c000015c]
Any other suggestions please?
Check the path to the drive K:\ and folder C:\Windows. They must exist
So what do I do if I’m getting this error and can’t boot from the original (win8.1 x64 OEI)installation cd? I’ve already set the dvd drive as 1st boot priority and restarted. Got the usual “verifying DMI pool data” message then:
Boot From CD/DVD:
Boot From CD/DVD:
then it goes right back to the same error screen. It does this continuously and I’m all out of ideas.
Thank you, Thank you, Thank you
Works perfect
Thanks you very much!
i got success all the way, the final step bcdboot c:\windows /l en-us /s /k: /f ALL, gives me error message “failure when initializing library system volume” what those that mean? what can i do?
OMG!! Thank you sooo much. I thought I had to do a full restore! Everytime I booted Win 8, it didn’t show a login screen (no password text field, only a blue screen with shutdown options…). You totally saved my ass. By the way, this happened after a Linux install with dual boot (Kali Linux)
Thank you very much for your help! I managed to recover my laptop stopped to four months. A big hug from Brazil.
Hi, in the final step ”c:\windows /l en-us /s /k: /f ALL” do I have to change “en-us” to my language? and, I have to receive a succes message after that?
Likely EN-US should be used for any system language
I am gettint an erorr when running the last command:
Could not open the BCD template store. Status = [c000000f]
Any advice?
This is great!!!! I’ve spend hours trying to migrate a Win8 installation to another SSD, but I was stuck at this stupid error. Now I´m back at the login prompt.
Thank you! After an hour of reading other solutions that did not help, this excellent post was able to assist me in repairing the Windows 10 bootloader.
I did the steps until this line, cd /d k:\efi\microsoft\boot\, it says “Access is denied”. How do I overrride this?
My Lenovo Yoga 2 Pro runs in Windows 10 Student OS to be specific.
Muchas gracias, maestro, me salvaste la vida.
Thankyou very much!!
Tx dude. This worked perfectly
Thanks! Worked fine for me (windows 8.1).
Stupid btw, that the windows tooling does not work on the hidden partition…..
Thanks working fine useful information
Thanks a lot !!! Very useful information. Worked perfect for my OS (Win8.1, German language).
Thanks a lot.
Worked for me too on Windows 10. I read many forums and you were the only one to provide the correct instructions for creating the BCD store again:
bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-us /s k: /f ALL
In my case I actually had to run the free Boot-Repair tool afterwards but I got the job done.
is it same with error code:
0xc000014cv?
Mine went fine until I got to the bcdboot command. When I ran that it returned the syntax as if I had issued a /?. Dell says my OP is corrupted and wants me to Reset to factory state. I’m trying to avoid that at all costs!!!! I’ve upgraded it from Win 8.1 to Win 10, installed a whole bunch of APPs, and run various tweaks on it over a year-and-a-half.
I don’t normally comment on sites, but I just had to come back here and say THANK YOU! I converted a Physical Windows Server 2012 R2 with Disk2VHD to hyper-V and it wouldn’t boot. Using this exact proceedure helped me fire up the Hyper-v instance as a direct imported Gen 2 VHD.
I had accidentally removed the windows EFI partition during a fedora install, so when trying to “cd /d k:\efi\microsoft\boot\” the directory wan’t there (there was only an efi\fedora directory). I simply created the correct directory structure using mkdir, followed the rest of the instructions, and was able to boot from windows upon system restart.
Thanks for the help!
hi, i have nearly the same problem, buti dont have that fat32 with 100 mb partition, it looks like this:Vol 0 F Windows 8 UDF DVD-ROM 3623MB healthy (no info)Vol 1 C Windows8_OS NTFS Partition 417GB healthy (no info)Vol 2 D Lenovo NTFS Partition 25 GB healthy (no info)Vol 3 WINRE_DRV NTFS Partition 1000MB healthy hidden Vol 4 SYSTEM_DRV FAT32 Partition 260 MB healthy hiddenVol 5 NTFS Partition 450MB healthy hiddenVol 6 PBR_DRV NTFS Partition 20 GB healthy hidden Vol 7 E USB DISK FAT32 Removable 7279MB healthy (no info)Vol 8 LRS_ESP FAT32 Partition 1000MB healthy hiddenMy english is not the best, in from germany, sorry, but i hope you can help me. i tried with vol 4 instead of your vol 1 and replaced the language to instead of en-us to de-de. i did anything u wrote and it seemed to do what it should. but when restarted my laptop, the same message with that “ ” – Smiley came, i cant start windows and then it restarts again, same blue screen with the unhappy smiley, collecting information again , restarting… and this repeats infinitly. hope you can help me, thanks
help me with this type of disk volumes
kindly explain me in detail about the solution to hidden files.
Hi Max, doe.s this solution works with windows 10 as well? I am having a similar problem.
Thanks, AL
I have read many similar articles on how to fix Windows boot problem in order to get mine working again. This is the ONLY article that actually works. You have helped me a lot. Thank you so very much!!!
I Just have to say i Googled the inital error and tried virtually ALL the other fixes [I'm sure you're all aware of the ones i'm talking about], and it wasn’t until i got here that my issue was resolved. Thank YOU! for posting this – i’m saving this article for future use!
A big thanks to you .. :):)
This as well as everyother “fix” for the Windows Bootloader does not work. First I can’t even see the “hidden partition”, then if trying to do the other steps I get “Failure when attempting to copy boot files” when doing bcdboot C:\Windows /l en-us /s g: /f ALL
Thanks mate!! it did work!
Thanks! Nothing worked and your solution did work, even for Windows 10!
Thanks for the helpful article.
I just have a problem, DISKPART shows my FAT32 partiotions (including the EFI partiotion) as raw in the Fs column. Whereas in a live Ubuntu CD and GParted app, those are shown as FAT32 partiotions.
I’ve successfully assigned the letter (k:) to the EFI volume but couldn’t go the bootloader directory of the hidden EFI volume. The error I encountered is:
How to deal with that?
Thanks
It seems that your FAT32 partitions are damaged. Try to re-create the EFI and MSR partitions using guide for Windows 7: http://woshub.com/how-to-repair-deleted-efi-partition-in-windows-7/
Thanks, I’ll try that
Thanksss. the tutrorila solved my problem:
http://woshub.com/how-to-repair-deleted-efi-partition-in-windows-7/
Althogh I whish I could understand what’s going on the procedure exactly
I cant see BOOTSTRAP with FAT 32. i see just 4 drives listed which are in MY computer.. plz reply what i do now.
Actually i deleted this partition(of 100 MB fat 32) mistakenly.. now how to do ?
This works! Thank you i appreciate it. For all who get the failure when initializing library system volume eroor. Just try the next FAT32 volume. I got that error at first. I tried the next FAT32 drive and it worked. Trust me. I was frustrated too, until i found the blog. Thank again.
hi for me I have the same problem :
the boot configuration data for your pc is missing or contain errors
file: \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD
Error code:0xc000000f
But with windows 10 and I tried both solution create a backup and create new one it doesn’t work
plz help help!!!!
Same problem. Please someone save me exams are coming up and I’m broke.
“the boot configuration data for your pc is missing or contain errors
file: \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCDError code:0xc000000f”
Great, you save my day! Thanks
Thanks a lot!! Weeks of work saved from reinstall!!!
Dio canaglia!
Used this solution after removing Ubuntu. The only solution that worked. Papa bless.
Thanks a lot! You really made my day! Advice worked well with my Windows 10.
I cant see BOOTSTRAP with FAT 32. i see just 4 drives listed which are in MY computer.. plz reply what i do now.
Thanks a lot!
All my good-wishes to you.
For those who get error messaage in last step BFSVC Error : Can not open the BCD template store. status – [c000000f]
Please try with ” bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-uk /s v: /f ALL ” command. Please note that you have to try with both forward and backward slash before Windows and your own local language code instead of en-US.
For me the following last command worked
bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-uk /s v: /f ALL
Thank You again. Thanks a lot!!
Thanks for your help. I was getting no where with trying to fix the boot issues with this server. The boot info was corrupted or just not readable. No matter what i did nothing worked until i tried your steps. yours worked on the first try.
Thanks a lot for the excellent description – it worked fine on my Windows 10.
Excelente solución. También funciona para Windows 10. Muchas gracias.
did everything, now I boot into another error. fie/efi/microsoft/boot/bcd error 0xc000000f and I can only boot into bios. I tried to boot from windows boot manager but it doesnt work