select proper boot device

[Josephv]

Using Windows 10. it was working fine. rebooted. now unable to boot to windows. Message is;
Reboot and select proper boot device.
i already tried bootrec \fixmbr and \fixboot - resulted in same issue
bootrec \rebuildbcd -
- finds the windows install and asks to add install to boot list
- I answer Y and it says 'requested system device cannot be found'

bcdedit /enum
boot config data store could not be opened
requested system device cannot be founrd

 

[Saltgrass]

If you can get into the bios setup check to see if your OS drive is listed and set as the first boot priority.

As you know, the message is saying the system can't find your boot drive. Why that would happen just because you reboot would not seem to make sense, if nothing else was involved.

Have you changed anything on your system or plugged or unplugged anything? Could the unit have been damaged or might the hard drive be old enough to have failed?

If the system drive is showing in the bios and you can run commands on the system, run the one below and reboot. The drive letter is the one where Windows is installed. If you want to make sure that drive letter is correct, do a dir command and make sure.

bcdboot c:\windows

 

[Josephv]

If you can get into the bios setup check to see if your OS drive is listed and set as the first boot priority.

As you know, the message is saying the system can't find your boot drive. Why that would happen just because you reboot would not seem to make sense, if nothing else was involved.

Have you changed anything on your system or plugged or unplugged anything? Could the unit have been damaged or might the hard drive be old enough to have failed?

If the system drive is showing in the bios and you can run commands on the system, run the one below and reboot. The drive letter is the one where Windows is installed. If you want to make sure that drive letter is correct, do a dir command and make sure.

bcdboot c:\windows

it only shows boot manager on the list of boot devices, not the actual hard drive
Yes, I did plug in an external drive and tried to convert that drive from FAT to NTFs
I tried to reset Windows and get message:
drive where windows is installed is locked. unlock the drive and try again

 

[Saltgrass]

When I mentioned checking to make sure the drive was there I just wanted you to check for the actual drive to make sure it was working. But if you see a Windows Boot Manager and it is set to boot then you should not be getting a no boot device type of message. But remember when you boot from a device other than your system drive the C partition may have a different drive letter.

Have you disconnected the external drive?

In the Command prompt open diskpart and check what is actual there.

diskpart
lis dis

If you OS drive is listed the select that drive using its disk number.

sel dis 0
detail dis

You might be able to send the listing to a USB drive so you can include or attach. Or take a picture and attach.

Here is mine:

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0

Copyright (C) 1999-2013 Microsoft Corporation.
On computer: AIO

DISKPART> lis dis

Disk ### Status Size Free Dyn Gpt
-------- ------------- ------- ------- --- ---
Disk 0 Online 1863 GB 1024 KB *

DISKPART> sel dis 0

Disk 0 is now the selected disk.

DISKPART> detail dis

ST2000DM 4
Disk ID: {2A704A13-3120-49A4-B2DF-21A3FAD74727}
Type : RAID
Status : Online
Path : 0
Target : 1
LUN ID : 0
Location Path : PCIROOT(0)#PCI(1F02)#RAID(P00T01L00)
Current Read-only State : No
Read-only : No
Boot Disk : Yes
Pagefile Disk : Yes
Hibernation File Disk : No
Crashdump Disk : Yes
Clustered Disk : No

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info
---------- --- ----------- ----- ---------- ------- --------- --------
Volume 1 C Windows 10 NTFS Partition 600 GB Healthy Boot
Volume 2 E AIO Data NTFS Partition 700 GB Healthy
Volume 3 F Images NTFS Partition 548 GB Healthy
Volume 4 ESP FAT32 Partition 500 MB Healthy System
Volume 5 WINRETOOLS NTFS Partition 852 MB Healthy Hidden
Volume 6 Image NTFS Partition 13 GB Healthy Hidden

 

[Josephv]

I did
detail dis
notice boot disk is NO
Boot Disk : No

 

[Saltgrass]

The EFI partition is FAT32, you didn't by any chance format that to NTFS? The entire Diskpart listing would have shown if the correct partitions were on the drive, so I will have to leave that to you to figure out unless you can list them.

But just so we are clear, you only have the HDD and the drive you are booting to installed on your system right now?

If something did happen to the EFI partition, it can be recreated fairly easily.

 

[Josephv]

The EFI partition is FAT32, you didn't by any chance format that to NTFS? The entire Diskpart listing would have shown if the correct partitions were on the drive, so I will have to leave that to you to figure out unless you can list them.

But just so we are clear, you only have the HDD and the drive you are booting to installed on your system right now?

If something did happen to the EFI partition, it can be recreated fairly easily.

 

[Josephv]

Yes, apparently I did format the EFI partition to NTFS. I have now fixed it but it was a bear to figure out.
DISKPART> list partition

Partition ### Type Size Offset
------------- ---------------- ------- -------
Partition 1 Recovery 300 MB 1024 KB
Partition 2 System 100 MB 301 MB
Partition 3 Reserved 128 MB 401 MB
Partition 4 Primary 222 GB 529 MB
Partition 5 Recovery 450 MB 222 GB
Partition 6 Recovery 450 MB 223 GB
{The System partition was still there but incorrectly formatted.}
These are the steps I did:
select disk 0
list partition
select partition 2 {I found other notes to Create this partition if it was missing, but I did not re-create it}
format fs=fat32 {format partition as FAT32}
assign letter = B;
exit {from diskpart}

From DOS prompt:
mkdir b:\EFI
mkdir b:\EFI\Microsoft
cd /d b:\EFI\Microsoft
bootrec /fixboot
bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-us /s b: /f ALL
{I have no idea what this last statement did but apparently it workd}
exit
{reboot computer, and it booted!!}

Was there any easier way to create or fix the EFI partition?

 

[Saltgrass]

The last statement takes the BCD store template from the Windows directory and places it in the system partition. You don't normally need all the switches. You may not have your recovery options right now so some more work may be needed and running the bootrec /rebuildbcd command may help.

To recreate the EFI partition, in Diskpart all you need to do is the command

create par efi (I do not remember if it needs to be formatted)

This simple command will work if you only have the unallocated space of the original partition. If you have other unallocated space you will need to be more specific or make use of the other unallocated space.

If you want to see the commands available, start Diskpart and use the create par /? command.

DISKPART> create par /?

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.14393.0

EFI - Create an EFI system partition.
EXTENDED - Create an extended partition.
LOGICAL - Create a logical drive.
MSR - Create a Microsoft Reserved partition.
PRIMARY - Create a primary partition.