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My whole question is in the title. Is it possible to repair Windows 10 BCD using another version of Windows installation disk, Windows 7 in this case? I got the Windows 10 BCD corrupted when I installed RemixOS on a separate partition that I created from an existing free space while booting from the RemixOS installation media.

If this is not possible, what are the alternatives, other than downloading Windows 10 ISO file and creating an installation media for windows 10? I have Kali Linux and Elementary OS installed and I can boot into them. I also have Remix OS installed and running fine. I can install Wine if it is possible to fix the Windows 10 BCD using some Windows application that can allow me to select the BCD file that I would like to fix or something similar.

Supreme Dolphin
  • 121

2 Answers2

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You can boot Windows 7 installation USB/DVD.

Go to recovery console.

Run bcdboot.exe from Windows 7 and see if it can fix BCD - format of BCD objects and elements has not changed since Vista.

bcdboot W:\windows

where W: is Win 10 partition, change drive_letter to your mapping.

There are more parameters which you can use when executing the bcdboot command - see Repair Windows BCD for explanations.

EDIT:

As it come out that Windows 10 is on GPT disk it is better to use this:

bcdboot c:\windows /s d: /f UEFI /l en-us

Notes:

  1. You have to boot Windows 7 DVD/USB the UEFI way.

  2. You should map EFI System partition to drive letter d: (or another)

  3. Use language code with parameter /l which is the same as Windows 10 installation language.

If this does not help you can create manually a Windows 7/8/10 loader using bcdedit.exe command: (assuming Windows 10 is on c: and EFI System on GPT is mapped to S:)

bcdedit /store S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD /create /d "Windows 10" /application osloader

The command creates a loader object and outputs its GUID. Copy this GUID as you will need it in next command.

bcdedit /store S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD /default {GUID}

This sets the default boot entry to Windows 10.

bcdedit /store S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD /set {default} device partition=c:
bcdedit /store S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD /set {default} path \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe
bcdedit /store S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD /set {default} osdevice partition=c:
bcdedit /store S:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD /set {default} systemroot \Windows
snayob
  • 4,500
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I did once use Windows 7's automated repair to fix a Windows 10's BCD and it worked. Nevertheless, it is possible that your type of damage is different from mine. Is it really BCD that is hurt?

On Linux, you can use Boot-Repair to repair the Windows boot process. But again, it depends on what kind of damage you are talking about.

From another copy of Windows, you can run Bootice.