catch 22 bcdedit

  • Thread starter Thread starter antares4141
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A

antares4141

I have a system with two copies of vista and one on linux. I accidently went
into the grub menu but didn't want to run linux. So I decided rather than
reboot I would just select the windows boot option from grub.

When I did this it somehow corrupted my vista boot menu or "store" file.
Now I cannot access any os from this drive.

The catch 22 is it seems you have to edit or replace this "store" file while
windows is running on this same drive and I can't do this.

I have another drive now installed in my computer and the damaged one in an
external enclousure.

Is there a simple way I can restore this file from a different os/drive like
this?

The option of using the system restore disks doesn't seem to be availible on
this hp computer. I just get a screen with four options and none of them
allow me into a dos window where I could run dos or offer to repair the
startup files. I must format the entire drive and completly restore windows,
or do a sys/restorepoint's (which I tried didn't work)
 
Will getting back into linux help me? I really don't know that os too well,
just learning to use it. My understanding is that I need to use the windows
os loader one way or another if I am going to get into vista. Actually did
use easybcd but when I rebooted found to my horror that it had applied the
changes to my current drive not the external. I ended up with the same exact
problem on both my working drive and my backup I keep just for emergency's.
It doesn't find the file. I was thinking their has to be a way to edit/create
this file from another os.
If I were able to borrow a vista cd from someone or buy it would I be able
to repair it this way or would their be issue's with copyprotection.
If I had a copy of xp on this disk I could run easybcd from this platform
and maybe solve my problem but I don't.

I tried switching the "active" partitions from the damaged copy of vista to
the other one and it actually loaded the file with my three different options
but none of them worked.

I was hoping this would be a simple matter to fix. I guess I may as well
move all my files off of the damaged partition and ghost it back with my most
recent backup.
 
It depends on what you have done. Restoring the grub boot sector may give
you the grub boot menu and you can boot to vista from there.
 
This is actually what started this problem in the first place. When I tried
to boot vista from grub I corrupted the store file for vistas boot manager. I
set the vista boot manager up using easybcd because from what I read you
can't use grub to boot vista, which seems to be consistant with my findings.

Interestingly though I was able to get into my grub which isn't loaded from
mbr but from vista boot manager and from their you load linux. But I am not
able to load windows from grub. I was able to load grub using the "ultimate
boot cd":
http://www.ultimatebootcd.com/
Great set of utilities for situations like this.
For those that might have an hp computer like mine (actually compq) I found
out that allthough the recovery dvd set I made will not allow me into a dos
window the recovery partition on my hd will. I found this out on my good
hard drive with the working copy of windows. Unfourtunally I didn't have this
on my multiboot hd becuase it takes up too much space. So I wiped out one of
the copies of windows on this bad drive and put a recovery partition on it,
hoping I could use one of the boot managers that come on the "ultimate boot
cd" to load it but unfourtunally the corrupt vista boot manager file keeps me
from doing this as it does with the copies of vista but not linux.
So I am still unable to solve this problem and it looks like I am going to
have to remove all the data off of this drive and do a complete restore from
the recovery dvds if I want to get this drive working again which sucks
totally!
Robert
 
antares4141 said:
This is actually what started this problem in the first place. When I
tried
to boot vista from grub I corrupted the store file for vistas boot
manager. I
set the vista boot manager up using easybcd because from what I read you
can't use grub to boot vista, which seems to be consistant with my
findings.
Click to expand...


Grub works fine with Vista. I use it on several computers.
 
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