Messed up WindowsRE after various OS installations in a partition

smirnovAl · 04 Jan 2017

Hi. Before starting, I'd like to note that I already tried to get help from the Microsoft forums, but all I got is a redirect to the TechNet forums where the available categories don't match to my problem, so I'll try here.

I'll do a quick recap: in 2013, I bought a license for Windows 7 and have been using it until December 2016, when I finally decided to migrate to Windows 10. I downloaded the ISO from Microsoft, did an upgrade, and it all worked fine. I never had to access the Windows Recovery Environment from neither OS so I can't confirm whether it worked properly on the upgraded Windows 10.

Recently (that same month) I installed a trial copy of Windows 8.1 to get a few things from its registry for my Windows 10's one, and uninstalled it after getting it all done. Since I had a Metro Boot Menu that was restarting my system after it automatically pre-loaded the operating system I didn't want to log-in yet, I switched it via the BCD to the legacy one, also known as "classic boot menu" which lets me choose an operating system before pre-loading any. I know I could choose Windows 8.1 as my default operating system while it was installed, but I not always wanted to boot it when starting the PC. So, I remember how long and 'correct' the BCD list was, but it all changed after the uninstallation of the Windows 8.1 operating system, resulting in a broken "Repair your system" option in the F8's Advanced Boot Menu Options which accessing it only left a black screen that only a restart could remove (the keyboard was still active, however). After some research, I found nothing and decided to follow the steps of working ramdisks that seemed to be fine "\Device\HarddiskVolume3". All it did is just remove the "Repair your system" option at all, and made the BCD list even smaller, as well as making the "System Reserved" partition to be visible inside the "My PC" page. It's 61,4 MB free of 99,9 right now.

I'm attaching the full BCD list in a text file.

EDIT (TL;DR): My main partition's operating system got its System Recovery disk completely messy or something, which doesn't even appear on the bcdedit /enum all list anymore. I'd like to know if there's a way to restore it somehow without doing a whole disk's format&reinstall. I'm sure that there should be a way to copy content from an installation media to the partition the same way it does when installing a Windows OS from scratch.

smirnovAl · 05 Jan 2017

Bumping just in case

smirnovAl · 05 Jan 2017

(Sorry for bumping again); added TL;DR in case it helps in any way.

SoFine409 · 05 Jan 2017

There is no way to copy any files from the install disk to restore the OS partition. Although not exactly like your situation, I suggest that you take a look at this thread. It's similar enough that it might help you.
Recovery Drive vs Recovery Partition vs PE Rescue Disk, confused.
I had installed Win10 with no System Reserved partition. The AU installation created a Recovery Partition that did not work. To fix everything a imaged the OS partition, did a clean install, and then restored the image of the working OS partition back over the new one. It didn't boot correctly so I deleted some of the boot files from the old OS (you shouldn't need to do this) and then used Kyli's Rescue disk to repair/recreate the boot files. I also had to use ReAgentC to restore the recovery environment. That is also in the thread but you'll need to confirm the correct disk and partition numbers using diskpart. All or part of this might help you. FYI I have MBR/Legacy system and not UEFI. Let me know if this helps or you have any questions.

smirnovAl · 06 Jan 2017

SoFine409 said:

There is no way to copy any files from the install disk to restore the OS partition. Although not exactly like your situation, I suggest that you take a look at this thread. It's similar enough that it might help you.
Recovery Drive vs Recovery Partition vs PE Rescue Disk, confused.
I had installed Win10 with no System Reserved partition. The AU installation created a Recovery Partition that did not work. To fix everything a imaged the OS partition, did a clean install, and then restored the image of the working OS partition back over the new one. It didn't boot correctly so I deleted some of the boot files from the old OS (you shouldn't need to do this) and then used Kyli's Rescue disk to repair/recreate the boot files. I also had to use ReAgentC to restore the recovery environment. That is also in the thread but you'll need to confirm the correct disk and partition numbers using diskpart. All or part of this might help you. FYI I have MBR/Legacy system and not UEFI. Let me know if this helps or you have any questions.

Thank you for the reply. I've been doing a lot of research before posting this thread, including on Microsoft, tenforums (eight & seven as well) and never came across with your thread nor similar ones. I'll be looking into following these steps. But before, does it mean that I can safely delete the System Recovery partition? I've read on many sites that deleting it would "break" the operating system (making it not detect any operating system). Nothing was mentioned about whether the Installation Media's "Start-up Fix" could fix that, however. Before trying anything I'd like to be sure of what I'm doing. Thanks!

SoFine409 · 06 Jan 2017

No do not delete the System Reserved partition that is where the boot files reside as well as the recovery files. If you do the PC will not boot and you will need to do a complete clean install.

You should definitely try the start up fix but if that doesn't help then you can try this. Go back to the advanced repair and on the page where the "Startup Repair" option is, select the "Command Prompt" option. Then in the command window enter the following commands one at a time hitting RETURN key after each one. Be sure you have a space between bootrec and “/”
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fix boot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuild

Note any error message that you might get then type exit. Reboot and reset the first boot option to the internal HDD (or SSD), save changes and reboot. Hopefully this will work.

SIW2 · 06 Jan 2017

1.Make a folder on your OS partition. Name it something e.g. RE.
You now have a folder C:\RE

2.Copy winre.wim and Reagent.xml from Iso Windows\system32\Recovery into C:\RE

3.Also copy Reagent.xml into C:\Windows\System32\Recovery

4. Open an Admin command and type:
Reagentc /setreimage /path C:\RE

(press enter)

Reagentc /enable

(press enter)

SoFine409 · 06 Jan 2017

SIW2 said:

1.Make a folder on your OS partition. Name it something e.g. RE.
You now have a folder C:\RE

2.Copy winre.wim and Reagent.xml from Iso Windows\system32\Recovery into C:\RE

3.Also copy Reagent.xml into C:\Windows\System32\Recovery

4. Open an Admin command and type:
Reagentc /setreimage /path C:\RE

(press enter)

Reagentc /enable

(press enter)

Thanks SIW2. Good advice. I was going to get to that after he had repaired the boot files.
Bob

smirnovAl · 06 Jan 2017

SoFine409 said:

No do not delete the System Reserved partition that is where the boot files reside as well as the recovery files. If you do the PC will not boot and you will need to do a complete clean install.

SoFine409 said:

You should definitely try the start up fix but if that doesn't help then you can try this. Go back to the advanced repair and on the page where the "Startup Repair" option is, select the "Command Prompt" option. Then in the command window enter the following commands one at a time hitting RETURN key after each one. Be sure you have a space between bootrec and “/”
bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fix boot
bootrec /scanos
bootrec /rebuild

Note any error message that you might get then type exit. Reboot and reset the first boot option to the internal HDD (or SSD), save changes and reboot. Hopefully this will work.

Sorry for not mentioning that I've already tried these commands, which confused my system in thinking that there's no operating system installed. I had to use the Start-up Fix to solve the problem. However, I still tried them again and all went fine until "/scanos", which found 0 Windows installations.

SIW2 said:

1.Make a folder on your OS partition. Name it something e.g. RE.
You now have a folder C:\RE

2.Copy winre.wim and Reagent.xml from Iso Windows\system32\Recovery into C:\RE

3.Also copy Reagent.xml into C:\Windows\System32\Recovery

4. Open an Admin command and type:
Reagentc /setreimage /path C:\RE

(press enter)

Reagentc /enable

(press enter)

I didn't quite understand where I have to copy "winre.wim" and "reagent.xml" files from. Winre.wim isn't found anywhere, including on the installation media nor on my current Windows installation; only the reagent.xml file is found here. By the way, "reagentc /enable" was one of the commands I tried days ago and it kept leaving me an error on attempting to enable the Windows Recovery Environment.

SoFine409 · 06 Jan 2017

OK lets try this another was. There is likely an OS partition and its probably intact. So go to this thread:
Windows 10 Recovery Tools - Bootable Rescue Disk
and download and create a bootable PE Rescue disk. This is handy to have because it has lots of good tools to help with these kinds of problems.

After you create it you can boot from it and use the file explorer to confirm that you still have the OS Partition and your data is intact. If so then run the Macrium Reflect Free Version on the desktop. In that you will find a menu selection that will repair all of the boot files. That it what I recently used to fix my PC. You'll have to select the System Partition, that's not hard because its named System Partition and then I think you also need to tell it where the OS is located. Tell it to repair everything since at this point you have nothing to loose. It should give you a clean set of boot files. If this works and you can boot to the system to Win10 and then I can show you how to get the Recovery information back in order using some different commands. I used them to that I used to fix mine. Post back and let me know if this works or you have any questions.

Do you have your data backuped so if you need to do a clean install you can? If not you could probably use the Macrium program on the PE recovery drive to back up your data to another drive or location, that is if the disk and partitions are still readable and at this point I think that it is.