When a system does not boot following an image-based restore

This section is specific to WinPE 2.0 clients that fail to reboot with the following symptoms after a bare metal restore:

In these cases, the probable cause of the boot failure is that the Windows BOOTMGR and Boot Configuration Database (BCD) were not restored during the bare metal restore. By default, the Windows installer places these components into a small partition separate from the partition that contains the Windows system. If the server contains multiple internal hard drives, the Windows installer may place this partition on a disk different from the Windows system. Below is a configuration where this is the case:

The Windows system partition C:\Windows is on disk 0 and the Windows BOOTMGR has been installed on disk 3 in a partition named System Reserved. The partition containing C:\Windows is not marked as Active and the System Reserved partition on disk 3 is marked Active. An Active partition is a bootable partition. Therefore, in this configuration, a bare metal backup only backs up the partition containing C:\Windows. The System Reserved partition containing the Windows BOOTMGR is not backed-up since it is on a separate physical disk.

In a configuration where the Windows system partition and the BOOTMGR partition are on the same physical disk, a bare metal backup and restore completes successfully, since both partitions are backed up and restored together.

The following procedure allows the Windows BOOTMGR configuration to be recovered after a bare metal restore so that the server will boot properly.

To recover the BOOTMGR configuration

1

Boot the server using the Windows installation media.

2

On the main screen, select Next and then Repair Your Computer.

3

At this point, the repair procedure does not detect the desired Windows installation and presents none to select, even after storage drivers are loaded. Select Use recovery tools and then Next. On the following screen, select the Command Prompt option.

4

Enter this command at the prompt:

# diskpart.exe

5

Enter this command to list available disks:

DISKPART> list disk

6

Find the desired disk in the list and select it by entering this command:

DISKPART> select disk number

where number is the number of the disk that contains the Windows installation.

7

Select the Windows partition on the disk:

DISKPART> select partition number

where number is the partition number.

8

Make the selected partition active (bootable):

DISKPART> active

9

Exit the diskpart utility:

DISKPART> exit

The partition is now bootable.

10

Reapply the master boot record and the boot sector by entering these commands:

# bootrec.exe /FixMbr
# bootrec.exe /FixBoot

11

When the master boot record and boot sector have been reapplied, rebuild the Boot Configuration Database (BCD) by executing:

# bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

The /rebuildbcd option scans all disks for Windows installations.

12

For each instance found, you are asked if that instance should be added to the BCD. Answer Y for the Windows installation that is currently being repaired.

13

When the Boot Configuration Database has been rebuilt, reboot again using the Windows installation media and select Repair Your Computer.

The desired Windows install should now be detected. If it is not, load the appropriate storage drivers.

14

When the Windows install instance displays in the list, select it, then click Next and choose Command Prompt.

15

From the command line, execute:

# X:\sources\recovery\StartRep.exe

This runs for a few minutes looking for problems and attempting to perform a repair. Some repairs require a system restart to complete. Remove the installation media from the drive and allow the computer to reboot itself from the newly restored Windows install.