Windows 10 bootrec /fixboot access is denied

Anonymous
2017-10-23T04:29:05+00:00

Hi, I was in a hurry and made the stupid mistake of not backing up before I resized a partition on my new Acer laptop, intending to clone my Windows 10 installation from a 1TB HDD to a 500GB SSD. Although the hard drive has less than 100GB used space, needless to say an error occurred, Error Code 0xc0000225.

The recovery partition of the HDD is not accessible using Alt F10 at the splash screen as recommended by Acer.

I have been following the advice in this video My attempts so far:

I booted into a Win 10 flash drive and tried automatic repair, which took hours but did not work.

Next I tried command prompt - bootrec /rebuildbcd, which was successful; bootrec /fixmbr, also successful; and finally bootrec /fixboot - but that was not successful and returned an "access is denied" message.

Not sure whether to move on to the next suggestion, which is using Diskpart, or continue trying to find some way to get a successful result from bootrec /fixboot.

Advice would be much appreciated.

[Moved from: Windows / Windows 10 / Windows update, recovery, & backup]

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Performance and system failures

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Anonymous
2017-11-28T08:31:49+00:00

Windows 10 Installation Media:

  1. Insert the Media (DVD/USB) in your PC and restart.
  2. Boot from the media.
  3. Select Repair Your Computer.

Select Troubleshoot.

  1. Choose Command Prompt from the menu:

Type in the command:

Diskpart

Type in the command:

List disk            (Note which disk is your Boot drive number mine is 0)

Type in the command:

Sel disk 0

Type in the command:

List vol               (Note which volume is the EFI partition mine is 4)

Type in the command:

Sel vol 4

Type in the command:

assign letter=V:

Type in the command:

Exit

Type in the command:

V:

After you have assigned a drive letter Using Diskpart You can format the EFI partition:

Example: if you assigned a letter V to the partition the command would be:

format V: /FS:FAT32

After the format you need to recreate the EFI directory structure with the command:

MD \EFI\Microsoft\Boot

Then change to the Boot directory with:

~~cd /d V:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot~~

Then run:

bootrec /FixBoot

Finally run:

bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-us /s V: /f All

Type in the command:

bcdboot C:\windows /s V: /f UEFI      (This replaces the above crossed out lines and works in Win 10 1709)

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Anonymous
2017-11-26T08:48:50+00:00

I had the same issue with the command Bootrec /Fixboot "Access is denied",

This only happens with Windows 10 1709 install media.

I tried the same command  with Windows 10 1703 install media and do not get the error "Access is denied".

This looks like an error with the install media for Windows 10 1709

Regards

Mark

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Anonymous
2017-10-27T02:54:35+00:00

Thanks everyone. I found out how to fix it. My laptop is back in business.

First of all I found the drive has a hidden 100MB Fat32 EFI boot partition, something new to me since I haven't been keeping up with current tech. The Windows automatic repair program can't see it so it can't repair it either. What you have to do is use diskpart to give the partition a drive letter and go on from there using command prompt (although I guess it's possible that auto repair might be able to fix it once it's made visible).

The instructions I used were these from Dell, but there are others on the web too. They seemed to work fine for my Acer though.

Good luck!

Windows 10

If you do have the Installation Media :

  1. Insert the Media (DVD/USB) in your PC and restart.
  2. Boot from the media.
  3. Select Repair Your Computer.
  4. Select Troubleshoot.
  5. Select Advanced Options.
  6. Choose Command Prompt from the menu :
    1. Type and run the command :

diskpart 2. Type and run the command :

sel disk 0 3. Type and run the command :

list vol

  1. Verify that the EFI partition (EPS - EFI System Partition) is using the FAT32 file system and assign a drive letter to it :
    1. Type and run the command :

sel vol <number of volume> 2. Type and run the command :

assign letter=<drive letter>: 3. Type and run the command :

exit

  1. In order to repair the boot record :
    1. Type and run the command :

cd /d <drive letter>:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
2. Type and run the command :

bootrec /FixBoot

The next step is the same across all the operating systems at this point :

  1. Rebuild the BCD store
  2. First run the command below to backup the old BCD :

ren BCD BCD.old 3. Now recreate it using this command :

bcdboot c:\Windows /l en-us /s <boot letter>: All

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  1. Anonymous
    2018-06-10T20:31:32+00:00

    This all stemmed from Using MediaCreationTool1803.exe, then using the cmd prompt. I get Access Denied. I followed the steps here and still Access Denied. When attempting bcdboot C:\Windows /s V: /f UEFI, I get Failure when attempting to copy boot files.

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  2. Anonymous
    2018-06-03T12:16:48+00:00

    The problem with BillyBigun's advice is that we don't know why we're selecting disk 0 and volume 4. 

    On my computer I have 5 SSD/HDDs, many salvaged from laptops and such. They all have a zillion volumes and partitions. 

    What you need to add to the instructions is the following 

    1. List Disk 
    2. Sel disk 1
    3. Detail Disk

    This will detail a bunch of stuff, telling if you if its the boot disk and if it has the MBR present. You'll need to work out which has your windows install. 

    If it isn't then sel disk 2, then detail it. If that's the one then go to the next disk. 

    After this you need to work out your volume and then the partition. 

    For volume you type 

    1. select volume 
    2. sel volume 2
    3. Detail volume 

    and so on like you did with disk. 

    then you have to do the same for partitions (same commands but replace volume with partition)

    finally once you have selected the correct Disk, Volume and Partition then you can assign a drive letter. 

    I selected t for more windows install. 

    Then you have to do exactly the same for your boot disk. Though i don't think you have to worry about partition/volumes because there is only one. 

    assign disk=v:

    Now type exit. get out of diskpart.

    Then type c:

    you can run: bcdboot T:\windows /s V: /f UEFI   

    see how it'll look at your windows, and grab something out of V: and then do something with it? whatever it does it's success. 

    Exit out of cmd line and click the "exit and boot windows 10"

    now i'm not sure if my MBR is screwed still. But i finally saw my fricken windows drive appear (f8 when BIOS splash screen was appearing).

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