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Can't boot without system reserved partition

Enten
By Enten
in Troubleshooting
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OK I know, there are literally hundreds of results on Google for this exact issue. I have tried at least 98 of them. 

 

I keep running into the same issue, no matter how I go about it. bootrec /fixboot gives me an "access denied" and I have not been able to get around it. Tried admin cmd, admin powershell, safe mode, windows cd cmd, everything. 

 

So this is why it happened:

 

When I backed up my SSD array, I made a system image. My mistake was not making a system image of SYSTEM RESERVED, which was hidden. I didn't even think about that measly 549MB of space when backing up.

 

My 512GB image finally restored with no issues to the new array, but for the life of me I cannot recreate the system reserved partition.

Well, I mean I CAN create it, I did that in dskmgmt. 

So now I have 2 partitions, and system reserved is empty. 

If I look at another PC's system served partition, it is also empty BUT properties shows something is on it, and taking up space, even though I cannot see it. I would normally just copy that over but I can't since the partition shows it's blank.

 

What do I do? What's the best solution? Can I just "clone" that healthy 549MB partition from an older windows 10 build, to my newer "empty" 549MB partition on the drive that won't boot?

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I would go another route, not sure if it will work tho.
Use the drive you want and start a fesh win10 install. Point it to the disk let it make the directory's.
Then after the instal (or sooner if you cut it short) just overwrite what you have backed up...

Probably something to do with EUFI as well.

When i ask for more specs, don't expect me to know the answer!
I'm just helping YOU to help YOURSELF!
(The more info you give the easier it is for others to help you out!)

Not willing to capitulate to the ignorance of the masses!

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2 minutes ago, HanZie82 said:

I would go another route, not sure if it will work tho.
Use the drive you want and start a fesh win10 install. Point it to the disk let it make the directory's.
Then after the instal (or sooner if you cut it short) just overwrite what you have backed up...

Probably something to do with EUFI as well.

The issue is that I have done this, and you won't believe me...

 

The fresh install did a win10 install with NO system reserved partition. And it boots! What gives?

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Well that's indeed a weird one, but hey at least it booted. :)

When i ask for more specs, don't expect me to know the answer!
I'm just helping YOU to help YOURSELF!
(The more info you give the easier it is for others to help you out!)

Not willing to capitulate to the ignorance of the masses!

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Just now, HanZie82 said:

Well that's indeed a weird one, but hey at least it booted. :)

But that's not what I needed :( it only boots if I don't have the raid drives connected, otherwise I get "0x0000225"

So now I can't even migrate data over, because I can't boot with the raid connected, and if I don't have them connected, I have no way of transferring data over! UGH!

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14 minutes ago, Enten said:

But that's not what I needed :( it only boots if I don't have the raid drives connected, otherwise I get "0x0000225"

So now I can't even migrate data over, because I can't boot with the raid connected, and if I don't have them connected, I have no way of transferring data over! UGH!

My bad, i must not have understood correctly.

I have an option but you might have already tried them, i'm sorry i cant be of more help.

 

 


What i sometimes do in Windows install, is click advanced on the diskmanagement screen and just delete all partitions and choose unallocated space and just click next and let the setup make all the necessary partitions.

 

 

Ps. added screenshot to clarify what diskmanagement stuff i meant.

Screenshot_1.png

When i ask for more specs, don't expect me to know the answer!
I'm just helping YOU to help YOURSELF!
(The more info you give the easier it is for others to help you out!)

Not willing to capitulate to the ignorance of the masses!

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6240147623624569550%253Faccount_id%253D3

 

Alright, great idea! Entirely forgot about the boot media drive partitioning/setup. Just wiped the primary and will try to boot and migrate the files over. 

 

It won't matter that the SYSTEM RESERVED is from a newer windows build, right??


Wish me luck!

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7 hours ago, Enten said:

 

Alright, great idea! Entirely forgot about the boot media drive partitioning/setup. Just wiped the primary and will try to boot and migrate the files over. 

 

It won't matter that the SYSTEM RESERVED is from a newer windows build, right??


Wish me luck!

Well best of luck my friend. 

 

When i ask for more specs, don't expect me to know the answer!
I'm just helping YOU to help YOURSELF!
(The more info you give the easier it is for others to help you out!)

Not willing to capitulate to the ignorance of the masses!

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I'm still getting winload.exe issue, ONLY when the raid array is connected... even though I deleted the entire drive. I think it's the actual system reserved partition that is not allowing me to boot into any other drive. What now?

 

Just unplugged the raid drives, boots fine. Jesus.... I can't think of a way around this without wiping the system reserved partition, WHICH I REALLY NEED TO KEEP

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I think I found something... that drive is showing up as "unallocated" in setup, despite having 3 partitions.

I plug it into a dock on another PC, and all 3 partitions show. 

 

This is just some kind of pure evil

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The System Reserved Partition contains the UEFI bootloader if your system is configured to boot in UEFI mode. If I were in your situation I would put your backup without the System Reserved Partition back in place, then boot off a Windows 10 Setup USB/DVD and recreate the boot-loader manually on your RAID array following these instructions under "Fix UEFI Boot in Windows 8, 8.1 or 10" here: https://neosmart.net/wiki/fix-uefi-boot/

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13 hours ago, Skyyblaze said:

The System Reserved Partition contains the UEFI bootloader if your system is configured to boot in UEFI mode. If I were in your situation I would put your backup without the System Reserved Partition back in place, then boot off a Windows 10 Setup USB/DVD and recreate the boot-loader manually on your RAID array following these instructions under "Fix UEFI Boot in Windows 8, 8.1 or 10" here: https://neosmart.net/wiki/fix-uefi-boot/

Okay, so 2 questions for you:

 

1. I have the boot in bios set to RAID instead of UEFI, will that be a problem? And *another* option is set to "legacy" but I can change it to UEFI, should I do that?

 

2. I believe I may have found another issue, when I browse the files made by the image backup, I cannot find a "windows" folder, just windows.old which is only about 86mb. Aside from that and the missing system reserved partition, the image copied everything else perfectly. Is the missing boot windows folder just in a different place maybe? The .vhdx file is 390gb, while the actual "image backup" folder is 455gb, why is that?

 

Otherwise, I'm going to make a bootable USB of what you just gave me. Will I have issues with the raid drivers? Windows repair CD made me load each driver every single time I booted it up or my RAID array would not show up, very frustrating. 

 

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On 8/28/2018 at 12:21 AM, Enten said:

Okay, so 2 questions for you:

 

1. I have the boot in bios set to RAID instead of UEFI, will that be a problem? And *another* option is set to "legacy" but I can change it to UEFI, should I do that?

 

2. I believe I may have found another issue, when I browse the files made by the image backup, I cannot find a "windows" folder, just windows.old which is only about 86mb. Aside from that and the missing system reserved partition, the image copied everything else perfectly. Is the missing boot windows folder just in a different place maybe? The .vhdx file is 390gb, while the actual "image backup" folder is 455gb, why is that?

 

Otherwise, I'm going to make a bootable USB of what you just gave me. Will I have issues with the raid drivers? Windows repair CD made me load each driver every single time I booted it up or my RAID array would not show up, very frustrating. 

 

I'm sorry I can't help you much here, I never used a RAID system. The missing Windows folder is odd though, can you somehow see what takes the size up in the backups?

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Have you made progress on this?

 

If you're interested in a product please download and read the manual first.

Don't forget to tag or quote in your reply if you want me to know you've answered or have another question.

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19 hours ago, keskparane said:

Have you made progress on this?

 

Not exactly,
I tried paritioning the SSD in half (1/9th really) since I couldn't boot off another drive with the array plugged in.
Installed windows 10 on both partitions, and scoured google for a very specific build. Finally found it and used that version.

"Copied" all files over from the image backup, and booted. About 1/3rd of the applications work, but the rest don't due to .dll errors.

 

I think I should just chuck it all out the window.

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I haven't used raid so there maybe something simple that I don't know about. With that being said I can't help but wonder if a lot of this issue doesn't come down to mbr vs uefi. Do you have a good handle on how to boot to a specific type, including recovery media, bios settings, etc?

If you're interested in a product please download and read the manual first.

Don't forget to tag or quote in your reply if you want me to know you've answered or have another question.

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