Onedrive seems to have created its own drive G partition and moved my previous drive G partition to drive L

hi PCR... thanks again for sticking with me.

(1) The Installation DVD needs to be in UEFI format. for your UEFI system. Open it in File Explorer. Is there an EFI folder & a BootMGR.efi file...?...

in answer to your first question, here is what is on the installation disc"

**(**2) Let's look at your EFI partition. Open an Administrator Command Prompt, & enter the following commands...

vol3 is only Fat 32 partition but is unlabeled ESR like yours, but it seems to be same structure as yours above, except for the label. However, even though volume 3 was selected, it reported detail for partition 2 but partition does not show up in disk management (because it is hidden?) see rec highlighted statement below. I don't think that is an issue though as volumes and partitions are different.

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.19042.1288]

(c) Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved.

C:\WINDOWS\system32>diskpart

Microsoft DiskPart version 10.0.19041.964

Copyright (C) Microsoft Corporation.

On computer: GARRY-INTEL1

DISKPART> list vol

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

Volume 0 Y DVD-ROM 0 B No Media

Volume 1 Z ESD-ISO UDF DVD-ROM 4345 MB Healthy

Volume 2 C Local Disk NTFS Partition 930 GB Healthy Boot

Volume 3 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System

Volume 4 H NTFS Partition 627 MB Healthy Hidden

Volume 5 D Application NTFS Partition 58 GB Healthy

Volume 6 E Data1 NTFS Partition 429 GB Healthy

Volume 7 F Data2 NTFS Partition 488 GB Healthy

Volume 8 G WorkArea1 NTFS Partition 886 GB Healthy

Volume 9 I Removable 0 B No Media

Volume 10 J Removable 0 B No Media

Volume 11 K Removable 0 B No Media

Volume 12 M Removable 0 B No Media

DISKPART> sel vol 3

Volume 3 is the selected volume.

DISKPART> detail part

Partition 2

Type : c12a7328-f81f-11d2-ba4b-00a0c93ec93b

Hidden : Yes

Required: No

Attrib : 0000000000000000

Offset in Bytes: 135266304

Volume ### Ltr Label Fs Type Size Status Info

* Volume 3 FAT32 Partition 100 MB Healthy System

DISKPART> exit

Leaving DiskPart...

here again is my disk management configuration

![Image](https://learn-attachment.microsoft.com/api/attachments/5ec3664f-e141-495d-88b4-16a2c676a091?platform=QnA

And now there are 5 instead of 4. Where did that fifth come from? They all have the same list of items in them & in the same order, (but maybe it's the one that is highlighted that gets chosen first?). yes I set this as the first boot option for reboot to boot from the dvd*. I don't know why you've got these options that group boot items within them.* My BIOS can switch from UEFI to Legacy. And each of those will be a single list of boot choices. I have a UEFI option in the screen shot of the bios you included above. what is that for?

the highlighted partition (5th one ?) is the DVD drive that I set to first boot option in order to boot from the DVD. It took a while but did finally boot from it. see drive cd rom 1 in the disk management screen shot above.

I'm queasy about messing with your BCD, but still am leaning toward it.

Sooooooo ... what next?? :-) If we try to fix the BCD and it really messes up, can / how to recover from it since I have no backup BCD to restore. Even though the recovery DVD appears as yours, I was not able to do the BCD edit when I tried before.

Since on Windows 20H2, would an update to version 21H1 do anything to help the situation?

Note that an hour or so ago I was exporting an edited photo to disk and boom... got a blue screen, but was able to recover from it OK. Don't know if it is a related issue or not, but I'm inclined to think not.

Cheers!

Garry

PS... Glad to see you are someone who likes a challenge. :-)

(1) The Installation DVD needs to be in UEFI format. for your UEFI system. Open it in File Explorer. Is there an EFI folder & a BootMGR.efi file...?...

(2) Let's look at your EFI partition. Open an Administrator Command Prompt, & enter the following commands...

DiskPart <<<Enter DiskPart

List Vol <<<List the volume numbers

Select Vol 2 <<<Select the EFI volume -- use your number, not mine

                                                                   -- It will be FAT32 & System

Detail Part <<<Show partition details

Exit <<<Exit

(3) "BootRec /RebuildBCD" is the plan to fix the sloppiness in your BCD. That also could be a solution for the error message you got. But we need to get that DVD working first in case it will be needed to undo the "fix".

(4) I don't see a single boot option in your BIOS that has an entry for {bootmgr}. All of the items in each option seem to be going directly to a device, albeit two of them go to the Windows Boot Manager on the device. And those two seem to be the same exact device...

And now there are 5 instead of 4. Where did that fifth come from? They all have the same list of items in them & in the same order, (but maybe it's the one that is highlighted that gets chosen first?). I don't know why you've got these options that group boot items within them. My BIOS can switch from UEFI to Legacy. And each of those will be a single list of boot choices.

I'm queasy about messing with your BCD, but still am leaning toward it.

(2) "where would I restore it from?"

All of this work -- making a new BCD after backing up the current one & restoring the backup BCD (if necessary) -- is done from the Command Prompt of your Installation DVD.

I booted from the DVD and after a long time it finally showed up on screen and had 2 options... Install or Repair. I chose repair then from the options presented, chose command prompt. Here is what DiskPart--->List Vol gave me...

I tried following your instructions above to do the backup and I managed to create the BU directory on C: but trying to do the backup it failed due to source not found. see red box on the following screen shot. I assume that this means there is no BCD?

I tried other commands as well after tis to see if I could get something going but nada...Nothing else seemed to work. see next screen shot red box .

At this point did not know what to do so just exited and rebooted using bios windows option.

In the following you talk about BootRec but I don't see where that comes into play from what you said to do.

That's what I'm expecting BootRec to also do: Create a {bootmgr} option in BIOS (NVRAM) & set it as the default. Let's stick with BootRec, but, if it fails, then we'll try BCDBoot. Both of them definitely regenerate the BCD. BCDBoot also regenerates all the other boot files that go into EFI. And BCDBoot actually can be run from within a booted Windows.

So if you will bear with me a bit longer, I would appreciate knowing what to do next.

If I were to upgrade to latest windows version 21H1 form current 20H2 might that fix it? Just a thought but I somehow doubt it.

Thanks again.

Garry

(1) It's the version (2004, 20H2, 21H1) that matters, not whether it has all the quality updates. A new version could possibly have new/altered tools in its recovery environment.

(2) "where would I restore it from?"

All of this work -- making a new BCD after backing up the current one & restoring the backup BCD (if necessary) -- is done from the Command Prompt of your Installation DVD.

(3) Note what it says in here...

https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/manufacture/desktop/bcdboot-command-line-options-techref-di

BCDBoot Command-Line Options

"BCDBoot adds a firmware entry in the NVRAM to point to the Windows Boot Manager. By default, this entry is placed as the first item in the boot list. Use the /p option to preserve the existing UEFI boot order. Use /addlast to add it to the bottom of the boot order list."

That's what I'm expecting BootRec to also do: Create a {bootmgr} option in BIOS (NVRAM) & set it as the default. Let's stick with BootRec, but, if it fails, then we'll try BCDBoot. Both of them definitely regenerate the BCD. BCDBoot also regenerates all the other boot files that go into EFI. And BCDBoot actually can be run from within a booted Windows.

Hi PCR...

you said above ...*"*But I still do -- kinda mostly -- believe a backup of the BCD should get any damage undone if you could restore it."

where would I restore it from? The DVD that I created was done using the media creation tool and the version of windows that is on there would be same as now (as of Sept 13 without any windows updates done since then. 3 updates were done yesterday.) and I don't believe it has my system specific details in it.

as you asked above...

"(1)

(a) Is the Installation DVD you've got of the same or greater version of Windows that is installed? It would be best if that were the case.

(b)Boot to it, & at its Command Prompt, show a picture of...

DiskPart

List Vol

Exit "

as mentioned above, same version of windows but missing updates since Sept 13th 2021.

I will try booting to it and see what happens. Please standby. I will take pic of the screen and attach when i get back into windows (if I do!)

...edit... added the following

before doing anything else, I restarted and entered the bios---> boot tab and looked at the boot options for 3 to 5. pics of the screens are below.

Note that Boot option 4 is UEFI... is that what you referred to before? Should I boot from there or the installation DVD (if so can I select repair from there so I don't wipe out all in current C drive installation)?

note that option 4 is listed first followed by 3 then 5.

Where to go from here?

Cheers!

Garry