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Windows being a silly bugger, can't find boot configuration

jaziekjaziek Bad at everythingAnd mad about it.Registered User regular
in Moe's Stupid Technology Tavern
Ok here we go.

Today I installed a new PCI-e wireless adapter + drivers into my windows 8 PC, and everything went tits up, windows failed to boot when I restarted it. Some kind of driver Issue I suppose. Since I don't have system restore enabled, I just went for a reinstall, since it doesn't take too long anyway.

Fast forward to after I've reinstalled windows, I now have a new problem.

Here is what my hard disk setup looks like
OAJwlgA.png

Now here's where it gets odd.

If I have just the OS Hard drive connected, it won't boot.

If I have all 3 hard drives connected, it still won't boot.

Only when I have the windows CD in the drive, AND all 3 hard drives connected will the system boot into windows. And in this case, it runs perfectly normally.

Clearly, the OS is doing something silly when looking for its boot records, but I have no idea how to fix it.

When I boot into recovery mode using the windows CD and try to run bootrec from a command prompt, it doesn't find any windows installations :rotate:.

Steam ||| SC2 - Jaziek.377 on EU & NA. ||| Twitch Stream

Posts

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    DraygoDraygo Registered User regular
    Check your bios and make sure the correct hard drive is listed as the primary drive.

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    Bendery It Like BeckhamBendery It Like Beckham Hopeless Registered User regular
    in an elevated cmd do bcdedit /enum all , post results.

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    jaziekjaziek Bad at everything And mad about it.Registered User regular
    Bendery It Like Beckham wrote: »
    in an elevated cmd do bcdedit /enum all , post results.

    The requested system device cannot be found.

    yes, I have set the right partition as active.

    Steam ||| SC2 - Jaziek.377 on EU & NA. ||| Twitch Stream
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    AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    so when you say you can't boot, what do you get? Some non-bootable device error? A BSOD? Eternal loading screen?

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
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    jaziekjaziek Bad at everything And mad about it.Registered User regular
    Gets past BIOS, then displays an error saying a required boot configuration file is missing or corrupted.

    Steam ||| SC2 - Jaziek.377 on EU & NA. ||| Twitch Stream
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    AiouaAioua Ora Occidens Ora OptimaRegistered User regular
    mmkay, I'm thinking the current boot config is referencing stuff off the CD, or is stored entirely on the CD. Try this:

    once you're booted, eject the CD.
    open admin-level cmd prompt 
    echo %windir%
#this should return "C:\windows" or something similar, we just want to make sure it's not pointing at the CD drive or something weird

bcdboot %windir%
#this should hopefully recreate your boot files, referencing the install at %windir% instead of whatever it's doing currently

    life's a game that you're bound to lose / like using a hammer to pound in screws
    fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
    that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
    bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
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