bcdedit and BIOS disk order, how do I setup multibooting?

shockwaveriderz said:

the nuclear option is to just rebuild your bcd store :

How to Rebuild the BCD in Windows

assuming you first use bcdedit to export your current bcd store, if rebuild doesn't work, you can always bcdedit import the exported bcd store back to the original...
this obviously will have to be done from winpe, winre or an install media usb.....

I find bcdedit /enum All to be confusing....Until I saw you use it I didn't know it existed...I have always used bcdedit /enum /v or bcdedit /enum firmware /v

as long as you backup the current bcd store first with bcdedit /export you could delete an entry from the current bcd store one by one and see what effect it has... if it won't boot just bcdedit import the oldbcd store and you are back to where you started from .

- - - Updated - - -



I have the ability to boot from a uefi shell in my bios from a usb flash drive. I've played about just looking at stuff, but be sure to read the uefi shell command reference first.

To dump a list of current boot entries:

Shell> bcfg boot dump -v

For bcfg help text:

Shell> help bcfg -v -b
or:

Shell> bcfg -? -v -b

be very careful

I think this is ultimately my solution and I will attempt it using EasyUEFI.

I wonder if EasyBCD has a bug in it because before I used it, I used to do it 100% manually via command line and it always worked. I am trying to recreate my steps from before.
This looks right except what is the next step after copying the boot files onto G:, how do I create an additional boot option and name it something distinct?

dictum said:

I wonder if EasyBCD has a bug in it because before I used it, I used to do it 100% manually via command line and it always worked. I am trying to recreate my steps from before.
This looks right except what is the next step after copying the boot files onto G:, how do I create an additional boot option and name it something distinct?

Code:

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
path                    \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {globalsettings}
flightsigning           Yes
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {897691c6-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
displayorder            {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 3

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
isolatedcontext         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {897691c4-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard

C:\Windows\system32>bcdboot E:\Windows /d /addlast
Boot files successfully created.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
path                    \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {globalsettings}
flightsigning           Yes
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {897691c8-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
displayorder            {897691c9-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
                        {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 3

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {897691c9-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
device                  partition=E:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
isolatedcontext         Yes
flightsigning           Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=E:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {897691c8-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
isolatedcontext         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {897691c4-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /set {897691c9-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6} description "Windows 10 Insider"
The operation completed successfully.

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume5
path                    \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {globalsettings}
flightsigning           Yes
default                 {current}
resumeobject            {897691c8-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
displayorder            {897691c9-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
                        {current}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 3

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {897691c9-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
device                  partition=E:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10 Insider
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
isolatedcontext         Yes
flightsigning           Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=E:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {897691c8-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {current}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-us
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
isolatedcontext         Yes
allowedinmemorysettings 0x15000075
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {897691c4-be16-11e9-97f4-be41aee8f2e6}
nx                      OptIn
bootmenupolicy          Standard

However.....

dictum said:

Your solution is quick, efficient and 5-minute and does not address my problem.

I added another boot opition via EasyBCD, this is what it looks like now:






And I gave a unique name to each Windows Boot Manager, ranging from 1 to 4 with one being disabled.







Here is the same layout visible under EasyUEFI.
Note that Windows Boot Manager 1 corresponds to C:\ disk EFI.
Win Boot Manager 2 is G:\ EFI.
"Win Boot Manager 1 Data" partition on the C: disk, which is strange. Why would there exist a boot manager pointing to the main data partition?
"Win Boot Manager 2 Data" is the same thing as above except on disk G:.

I don't get it. But it explains why when I hit F11 there are 2 entries per same thing. Which is compounded by the fact that both disks are the same model so I see 4 Samsungs and it's confusing as H3ll. See last pic.





100%x​

Still too many boot entries. And I cannot figure out which is good and which are bogus.

I did BTW:
bcdboot G:\Windows
and bcdboot C:\Windows /s G:
which I used to do before switching to EasyBCD which as far as I know does the same thing -- and to no avail. No change, the clone does not boot.

The order in the BIOS is wrong. When I change the order, the primary does not boot. To make it even more confusing, the names I gave to Boot managers do not show up in the BIOS!!!! Only in EasyUEFI and Visual BCD Editor.

I quit using easybcd because it created various entries that did not exist in the first place......so yes, I think it's buggy to some degree. I've also used visualbcd, which is not as intuitive as easybcd is, and looked at easyuefi but the trial is very limited in what it can really do, so I'm practicing using bcdedit . sometimes you can't just beat a good command line interface .

This is what I am beginning to think.. I did the manual bcdedit / bcdboot for around 4 years without any issues, the dual boot worked very well and then started to use EasyBCD which royally screwed it up. And the dual boot no longer works.

Now I am struggling to remember the commands I used, to create a new entry. EasyBCD looks like when I do bcdedit on the command line - but doesn't work. I don't get it the boot order matters in BIOS and I have to rearrange the disks around to boot from either primary or clone disk.

I wonder if I should get the paid version of EasyUEFI but then I am not really sure what it will get me.

VisualBCD looks impossible to use, not user friendly, I just use it as a visual way to look at things, a scan tool. So it helps in that regard.

In the BIOS boot manager choice, I see 4 (four) Samsung entries, whereas I have only 2 Samsung disks.
and some of them are not working so everytime I shuffle disks I have to try one and see if it works.

And when I run bcdedit /enum all, I cannot correlate the faulty entries with which boot manager it is. In other words, none look obviously wrong. And I don't know how to display the contents of the boot manager.

And here is the command line output of bcdedit. It suddenly started showing a lot more entries.. however they are labeled.
Win Boot manager 1 is the EFI on C: disk; Win Boot Manager 2 is the EFI on G: disk; Win boot manager 1 data refers to the main (large) data partition on C: disk -- I have no idea why that boot manager exists, what created it or why I need it, however I am afraid of deleting it as it may wipe out the data (I am not sure).
Win boot manager 2 data refers to the main data partition on G: disk.
Clear as mud.

Here we go again.. I tried to boot into Win 10 clone and got this of course


Had to hold DEL during boot to get into BIOS. Once there under Boot change the order of Boot Managers and got into clone. See how C: drive now became PM981_old (when the primary disk booted, C: was attached to PM981_new disk).

and if I try to boot into main (primary) Win10 disk, PM981_new, I will get this error message (last pic). This is very frustrating.