No physical memory is available at the location required for the Windows Boot Manager. The system can not continue.

So, I cloned the "bad" HD to a brand new one and attached it via USB to a Lenovo Laptop and tried to boot it with Windows active and startable (i.e. no IBM Boot Manager in the equation). The result was Windows did not boot. No surprise, but there was this pop-up message instead of just a reboot or the "No physical..." message:

Windows Boot Manager

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:

1. Insert your Windows installation disc and restart your computer.

2. Choose your language settings, and then click "Next".

3. Click repair your computer

If you do not have this disc contact your system administrator or computer manufacturer for asistance.

Status 0xC00000001

Info: An unexpected error has occurred.

I have tried this many times. Running repair doesn't fix it.

Jordan

(1) Oops, I edited my prior post for two things. BIOS loads the MBR (master boot record) of the target disk, not of the IBM BM partition. A partition doesn't have an MBR. Also, I think Startable means more than Active. It has to set a bit in the MBR, but I think it also means that the VBR (volume boot record) invokes the IBM Boot Manager (instead of the Windows Boot Manager).

(a) Firmware (BIOS) loads the MBR (of the target disk).

(b) The code in the MBR searches its partition table for the Active partition (which is IBM BM).

(c) The code then loads the VBR (Volume Boot Record) of the IBM BM partition.

(d) The VBR code loads the IBM Boot Manager.

(e) Finally, IBM Boot Manager reads the partition tables and presents a menu to the user.

(2) IBM BM & your Windows (since System Reserved is deactivated) both have startup files (boot files). So, they can be made Startable (Active). Mainly, the IBM BM partition has the IBM Boot Manager which mysteriously isn't actually a file. It is a "sector-by-sector image right after the VBR". It gets loaded by code that is in the VBR. The eCS partition has an OS only so is inappropriate to be made Startable. It needs to be Bootable. The Windows partition can be Startable &/or Bootable going by the files it has.

But I think the Windows partition can only be booted by the IBM Boot Manager because I think that has been written into its VBR. I don't really know. Maybe only the IBM BM partition was altered that way. Even if so, possibly the Windows Boot Manager (if still called by Window's PBR) won't understand the partition table due to those "extended flags" that are added to it. So, I think you should never make Windows Startable -- just Bootable.

(3) That's interesting you can DIR the partitions. That has to mean they were mounted well, & that means there has to be something good about the partition table. Also, step (b) above found the IBM BM partition in the table, & its VBR was able to load the IBM boot manager which "itself" then read the partition table & did present a menu. So, both the code in the MBR & in the IBM boot manager can handle the partition table. A lot went right. I'm getting dizzy contemplating what went wrong, but it might be just the wine. And I need another glass.

(2)

(a) There are only 2 partitions that can be made startable: IBM BM and Windows 10. eCS needs to forced to do so since it resides in a Logical partition, but I suspect that doing it would result in the same behavior as we have not found the root problem with this "No physical.." for all Legacy Boot entities.

(c) I could. But I'd rather solve this issue, because any other attempt like using Windows Boot Manager will fail since the message "No physical.." involves it.

I am trying to find out whether having the wrong information regarding the partitions in the MBR will result in being able to do a dir in Windows on FAT32 and NTFS partitions and seeing all files but not able to boot like the problem I have. I do know that misaligned partition info in the MBR will result in loss of data i.e. Windows will report either it is unformatted or no data is there (but it recognizes that for example it is formatted as FAT, FAT32, or NTFS). There is a way to rewrite the MBR keeping the partition table in DFSee, but I think I already tried that with no success.

Jordan

(1) This is an excellent site you found...

http://jdebp.info/FGA/bootstrap-programs.html

Acc. to Wikipedia, partition Type/ID of 0x0A is an OS/2 Boot Manager partition (BMP). Because you have the partition, yours indeed is the IBM Boot Manager (not the Partition Magic version which lives in the MBR). Your bootstrap is...

(a) Firmware (BIOS) loads the MBR (of BMP the target drive).

(b) The code in the MBR searches its partition table for the Active partition (which is BMP).

(c) The code then loads the VBR (Volume Boot Record) of BMP.

(d) The VBR code loads the IBM Boot Manager.

(e) Finally, it says...

"IBM Boot Manager itself then reads the partition tables from all (firmware-accessible) non-removable DASDs [direct access storage devices], and presents a menu to the user of all partitions that it finds that have been marked with the 'bootable' flag."

So -- since you got the menu (naming eCS & Windows), all went well that far. BIOS did its job. The MBR did its job. The VBR did its job. Then, you report...

"Selecting either the screen goes black for a second and then reboots to the BIOS screen."

The IBM Boot Manager presented the right partitions to choose from. It found the "extended flags" that say "bootable" in the partition table. You made the choice. But the manager then failed to load the OS of the partition you chose. It could mean the dimensions of the partitions that also are in the table have been mussed -- but the dimensions of BMP had to be good enough for steps (c) & (d) above.

So, maybe it's something else gone wrong. That excellent article doesn't say in detail exactly what happens to load the OS after you make your selection. We can see in your BCD that the Windows Boot Manager would pass control to Winload.exe. But what does the IBM Boot Manager pass control to?

(2) "But making Win 10 startable and active and trying to boot gives the 'No physical...' message.

Not sure how the IBM Boot Manager boot problem and the Win 10 by itself boot problem are related."

(a) I think "startable" & Active are the same thing. DFsee does the same as DiskPart would do to make the partition Active. Did it automatically turn off Startable for the eCS partition? (DiskPart wouldn't). You can have only one Active partition per HDD. Edit: But Startable (I think) also means that the partition's VBR (volume boot record) has been changed to load the IBM Boot Manager.

(b) It is "bootable" that DiskPart can't do. Some kind of "extension" has been added to each entry in the partition table for that. And it looks like code has been put into its VBR (volume boot record). That's what makes step (d) work above. Edit: Sheesh, that's in the Startable's.

And, later at the site, it says, "IBM's boot manager code is stored as a straight sector-by-sector image right after the VBR, and the [Boot Manager] partition is not formatted as a regular disc volume, so the boot loader code in its VBR is somewhat simpler [than Microsoft's bootmgr]."

(c) Therefore, when the Windows partition is made Bootable, I think it is still the IBM Boot Manager that boots it. I wonder whether we should try to do an installation like at that os2World site I found that uses the Windows Boot Manager?

(3) Another possible location for WinRE.wim is the System Reserved partition. But yours didn't show the Recovery\WindowsRE folder & is disabled anyway. Your BCD shows the recovery environment is not enabled. And there is no recoverysequence entry that would set it up. So, you must always boot to external media for yours. That's ok. We'd better let it alone than give eCS another reason to fail. Otherwise, that BCD is good. It knows where the boot files & OS partition are. But it is a single-boot BCD. It is not being used to do the boot.

You had (4) but I will revert to (1) Yes. DFSee is a very handy and powerful utility and the author has saved my skin many times. (2) I don't have that dir. I only have c:\recovery\oem and there are 2 files there from 7/19/2022. Here is a pic of the bcdedit /store c:\boot\bcd: (3) Yes. But IBM Boot Manager does not have to be in Partition 1, I have a working Windows 2000/eCS system where it is actually later on the disk. I think there are restrictions as to how far into the disk it can be and there is an I13X option that may be needed to boot eCS. (a) I doubt it. I think you can hex dump it and that's as good as it gets.(b) No idea. Look at this article. It may help.http://jdebp.info/FGA/bootstrap-programs.html(c) It is not hidden. It is filesystem type 0x0A.(d) You cannot dir it. It is I'm sure IBM propriety code so hex dump and finding somewhere online the layout might help. (4) IBM Boot Manager did work until this problem. Now, if I enable it the behavior for both Win 10 and eCS is the same. Selecting either the screen goes black for a second and then reboots to the BIOS screen. But making Win 10 startable and active and trying to boot gives the "No physical.." message.

Not sure how the IBM Boot Manager boot problem and the Win 10 by itself boot problem are related. (5) Yes. DFSee can change a partition to startable. I agree. The boot files for each OS should be in its partition. It is curious though that both OSes cannot boot when IBM Boot Manager is enabled. And if I try to enable ether Win 10 as startable it cannot boot. On my system eCS lives in a Logical Partition instead of a Primary Partition so attempting with DFSee won't make it startable without a force option so I didn't try it.Jordan