I get “Your PC needs to be repaired” and “Error code: 0xc0000225” in Windows 8.

Anonymous
2012-11-01T06:42:41+00:00

When I boot my Windows 8 laptop (see details below), it displays this message:

Recovery

Your PC needs to be repaired

A required device isn't connected or can't be accessed.

Error code: 0xc0000225

[ A text saying I should use recovery tools on my installation media to fix the issue. ]

Press Enter to try again

Press F8 for Start-up Settings

Press Esc for UEFI Firmware Settings

If I press Enter or F8, the central part of the message changes to:

The application or operating system couldn't be loaded because a required file is missing or contains errors.

File: \Windows\system32\winload.efi

Error code: 0xc0000225

My specific situation:

I have an ASUS UX32VD (R4002H) bought just days ago with Windows 8 preinstalled. I was going to swap the internal HDD for an SSD and was messing with the partitions to make them fit into the smaller SSD before cloning. I am not sure exactly what operation I did prior to the crash, but I probably tried to move a partition (which probably was unnecessary anyway).

I have not made recovery disks (yeah, I know).

When I started SystemRescueCD on the laptop and ran testdisk (for the first time in my life), the partitions seemed OK (to my eye), except for something called Backup Boot(sector|loader|?) that was marked as Bad on one of the partitions. I fixed that, to no avail.

I have no physical representation of a serial number (is that a thing of the past?) and I don't know anything about it being somewhere on the disk. I have no installation media, I didn't get anything like that with the computer.

I have contacted ASUS support, but the answer wasn't very technical.

My obvious question:

How can I get out of this mess? I would prefer if I could repair the partition table or whatever is wrong and get back into the installed OS, but if that is not possible, how can I reinstall Windows 8?

If I need to run a system repair distro from a USB stick and run command line programs, that's no problem.

Thanks!

Original title : I get “Your PC needs to be repaired” and “Error code: 0xc0000225” in Windows 8: how can I fix it?  

Update:

I have resolved this issue. What I did was a combination of the advice on this page:

http://qliktips.blogspot.se/2012/11/fix-windows-8-boot-issue.html

and setting the correct attributes and properties on the various partitions and volumes using FDISK. I had a strange partition that I removed and one or more volumes was of the wrong type (GUID).

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Anonymous
2012-11-07T05:44:31+00:00

Boot from a Windows 8 Recovery Media...

    Trouble Shoot -> Advanced Options -> Command Prompt

            CMD> bootrec /scanos

            CMD> bootrec /rebuildbcd

            CMD> bootrec /fixmbr

            CMD> bootrec /fixboot

     Reboot.

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  1. Anonymous
    2012-11-07T10:07:00+00:00

    I hesitate to suggest that you repair C:'s MFT using TestDisk, since it doesn't officially support Windows 8.  You could try it *AFTER* using Paragon's Backup Image for Windows 8 (free) to backup your harddrive first.  If the MFT repair doesn't work, then try deleting C:\ partition and re-creating it as blank, and copy files & folders from the backup.

    (I doubt Windows 8 PE is lacking drivers for USB 3.0, so I don't think that's the problem.)

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  2. Anonymous
    2012-11-07T08:56:51+00:00
    1. Did '/scanos' return the proper info for Win8's location?
    2. Have you gone through the steps in the following URL?

    http://superuser.com/questions/302603/problem-recreating-bcd-on-windows-7-64bit-the-requested-system-device-cannot-b?answertab=oldest#tab-top

    1. It returns [1] \?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HarddiskVolume3\Windows. I don't know if that is correct.
    2. Almost all the steps involve C:, and I can not access C:. If I simply try to go to C: I get "The disk structure is corrupted and unreadable."  But if I boot into SystemRescueCD and do this, I can read the directory structure:

    mkdir c

    mount /dev/sda3 c

    ls c

    But mount does say "The disk contains an unclean file system (0, 0). The file system wasn't safely closed on Windows. Fixing."

    (In the super user thread you linked to, there is an answer that says there can be problems when booting from a USB 3.0 port. I think all USB ports on the UX32VD are 3.0.)

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  3. Anonymous
    2012-11-07T08:06:33+00:00

    Did '/scanos' return the proper info for Win8's location?

    Have you gone through the steps in the following URL?

    http://superuser.com/questions/302603/problem-recreating-bcd-on-windows-7-64bit-the-requested-system-device-cannot-b?answertab=oldest#tab-top

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  4. Anonymous
    2012-11-07T07:15:06+00:00

    Thanks for the suggestions!

    Three commands work and return no error messages, but bootrec /rebuildbcd results in something like:

    "The requested system device cannot be found." (I copied this from another web page, my exact error message might be somewhat different, but the meaning was the same.)

    And the computer still doesn't boot. Can I run some command that would give some meaningful information about my system?

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