BCDEDIT Safeboot Trouble on HP ProDesk 400 Towers

I have a method for doing safeboots on non-bootable systems. I have been primarily using Dell PCs and have no problem with any of those. Recently, I purchased two HP ProDesk 400 Towers and they work fine except for this one wrinkle.

I use recdisc to create a system repair disk and create recovery disk to create a similar troubleshooting aid on a USB. For some reason, the system repair disk still works as expected, but the USB recovery disk does not.

On booting up the USB, I select Troubleshoot and Command Prompt. Then type in one of the following depending on the circumstances:
BCDEDIT /SET {default} safeboot minimal
BCDEDIT /SET {default} safeboot network
BCDEDIT /SET {default} safeboot alternateshell

It should return a message that it has executed successfully (I also have found that if I am doing BCDEDIT inside of Windows 10, using {current} instead of {default} works best).

I set the optical disk and USB drive aside as insurance. I don't like the bootmenupolicy legacy method and I want to be able to go into safe mood even if Windows 10 will not boot up.

To turn the safeboot back off with BCDEDIT, I use:
BCDEDIT /deletevalue {default} safeboot

And then the system boots in normal mode. As above, I use {current} instead of {default} if I am doing this inside of Windows 10.

On the HP ProDesk 400 Tower, using the USB to boot up into the command prompt, I get the following error if I type in a BCDEDIT command of any kind, including just typing in BCDEDIT:

The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The requested system device cannot be found.

I can use the system repair disk successfully, but it bothers me that the USB will not work. The only thing I found to try is using different USB ports and especially to use 2.0 instead of 3.0. That did not help me at all. None of my USB ports would allow me to do BCDEDIT, although they all allow me to boot up on the USB. I actually have 2 USBs. One 2.0 and one 3.0 because I have noted some issues in the past where some laptops were happier with the traditional 2.0 drive using a 2.0 port. Most of our PCs don't care either way.

Any ideas as to why I am getting the error message? The PC boots up fine from the HDD and from the system repair disk and BCDEDIT works fine unless I boot up from a USB Recovery Drive.

Does the USB create a RamDisk eg X:\ when it boots ? it is likely looking there for the BCD File not on C:\ , you may need to change to C:\ 1st if the Path is not set to the system directory.


You can just set Safe mode up so it is there for 5 secs at each boot so you can use it anytime instead , this works for me....

Post back if you want instructions for that , and i'll find my notes...


KB

It is on X:, but it is on X:\Windows\System32. Looking around, it looks to me like all of the C: drive. I see x:\Users and x:\Program Files and x:\Program Files (x86), for instance.

If I type in C:, all that is there is a folder called Recovery that appears to be empty and a file called system that appears to be empty.

Are you saying the reason it can't find the Store File is because the drive was called X instead of C?

I am interested in seeing your instructions for the method you are using. Thanks.

Thanks Kbird! I was doing this method at one time...seems like it was when I was migrating from Win8 to Win8.1 or UEFI or some combination thereof, that the extra boot entries stopped appearing and I never did figure out how to fix that. I'd much rather do it this way then continue my collection of USB Recovery Drives anyway.

Glad to help , but don't be surprised if a Major Win10 Revision resets the BCD and you have to redo it.... might be what happened in the past to you...

KB