Dual Windows Boot winload.efi error on every restart

GreatLove said:

did not work

Click to expand...

Then the problem is somewhere other than the EFI system partition if your computer only has one EFI system partition.

aubergine said:

diskpart
list volume (check your EFI system partition number)
select volume # (replace # with your EFI system partition number)
format quick fs=fat32 (optional: format your EFI system partition)
assign letter=z
list volume (check the volume letters of both your Windows partitions)
exit

bcdboot x:\windows /s z: /f uefi
- replace "x" with the volume letter of your first Windows partition

bcdboot x:\windows /s z: /f uefi /addlast
- replace "x" with the volume letter of your second Windows partition

- /s z: is your EFI system partition you assigned above
- firmware type /f uefi is not needed if you have booted USB flash drive in UEFI mode

Click to expand...

Here is an easier way if you don't want to format the EFI system partition and if your computer has only one EFI system partition.

- the /s option is not needed
"Specifies an optional volume letter parameter to designate the target system partition where boot environment files are copied. The default is the system partition identified by the firmware."

- firmware type "/f uefi" is not needed if you have booted USB flash drive in UEFI mode

How to fix dual boot issue?

diskpart
list volume (check the volume letters of both your Windows partitions)
exit

bcdboot x:\windows
- replace "x" with the volume letter of your first Windows partition

bcdboot x:\windows
- replace "x" with the volume letter of your second Windows partition



On a GPT disk, you will receive the error message "Failure when attempting to copy boot files" if the USB flash drive is booted in BIOS mode or if you enter the wrong volume letter for the Windows partition.

KYHI said:

His problem is between the two disks - he has (made known to me) 3 EFI Partitions (System Partitions).................
the only Partitions that should be on the second disk is the Second OS and Data..........

Click to expand...

Wouldn't that make the second OS dependent on having the first OS drive always installed and working? I think that's what got me into trouble the first time I setup a dual boot system. I needed the drive I had removed to get the second OS to boot.

Yes, Booting the secondary drive would be dependent on the Primary drive w/System Partition...
Thus even better if second OS also on Primary Drive (different partition) and second disk used just for Data..

Winuser said:

Wouldn't that make the second OS dependent on having the first OS drive always installed and working? I think that's what got me into trouble the first time I setup a dual boot system. I needed the drive I had removed to get the second OS to boot.

Click to expand...

THIS is my problem. it depends on my m2 working windows drive

Next time i want to install a second windows on a separate drive, do i need to unplug my working windows first before install to not get this issue again?

GreatLove said:

Next time i want to install a second windows on a separate drive, do i need to unplug my working windows first before install to not get this issue again?

Click to expand...

No. Then the computer has two EFI system partitions and dual booting does not work.

Do not remove the Windows boot disk. The new Windows installation recognizes the existing EFI system partition, so both Windows use the same EFI system partition.

Set up or repair the boot menu on a dual-boot PC​

1. Install a separate hard drive or prepare a separate partition for each operating system.
2. Install the operating systems. For example, if your PC has Windows 7, install Windows 10 onto the other hard drive or partition.
3. Reboot the PC. The boot menus should appear with both operating systems listed.

Click to expand...

aubergine said:

No. Then the computer has two EFI system partitions and dual booting does not work.

Do not remove the Windows boot disk. The new Windows installation recognizes the existing EFI system partition, so both Windows use the same EFI system partition.

BCDBoot Command-Line Options

BCDBoot Command-Line Options

learn.microsoft.com

Click to expand...

what i did was i had my broken windows (then working) on my m2 drive and a new install of windows on my ssd, so i cloned both windows i mean i took an image of them and swapped them. so now my new installed windows is on m2 drive and the broken one on the ssd. the fresh installed windows started with no issue that i swapped to the m2 drive but the one i put on my ssd does not, i get a boot menu in bios were i can choose between fresh installed windows and the broken one

GreatLove said:

Next time i want to install a second windows on a separate drive, do i need to unplug my working windows first before install to not get this issue again?

Click to expand...

That's how I do my dual boot systems and it works for me. Once finished I use EasyBCD to add the second OS to the boot menu.

aubergine said:

BCDBoot Command-Line Options

BCDBoot Command-Line Options

learn.microsoft.com

Set up or repair the boot menu on a dual-boot PC​

1. Install a separate hard drive or prepare a separate partition for each operating system.
2. Install the operating systems. For example, if your PC has Windows 7, install Windows 10 onto the other hard drive or partition.
3. Reboot the PC. The boot menus should appear with both operating systems listed.

Click to expand...

I tested in a Hyper-V virtual machine (image below).



Google AI: The EFI System Partition (ESP) does not have to be on the primary disk, nor does it have to be the first partition on a disk; it just needs to be on a disk accessible by the UEFI firmware at boot time. While it is often located on the primary drive where the operating system is installed, the ESP can reside on any GPT-formatted drive.

aubergine said:

Google AI: The EFI System Partition (ESP) does not have to be on the primary disk, nor does it have to be the first partition on a disk; it just needs to be on a disk accessible by the UEFI firmware at boot time. While it is often located on the primary drive where the operating system is installed, the ESP can reside on any GPT-formatted drive.

Click to expand...

Correct - but you are only test a system with 1 EFI partition, he has 3 that I am aware of.............

KYHI said:

Correct - but you are only test a system with 1 EFI partition, he has 3 that I am aware of.............

Click to expand...

in recovery in cmd, with diskpart i only saw 2, one for the working windows and one on the broken one. 2 fat32 partitions at almost 100 mb

It seems that there is no harm in having several unused EFI system partitions.

I created a new virtual machine to which I added the four previously installed Windows disks. I booted the virtual machine, and the virtual machine's UEFI firmware booted Windows.

"When no NVRAM boot entry is found for an OS, the UEFI firmware will scan all connected disks for an EFI system partition, which is a FAT32 partition containing bootloader files. If the \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi file is found on any of the EFI system partitions, the firmware can load it and initiate the OS boot process, even without a corresponding NVRAM entry."



I ran the following commands as administrator.

PS C:\Users\admin> bcdboot f:\windows
Boot files successfully created.
PS C:\Users\admin> bcdboot e:\windows
Boot files successfully created.
PS C:\Users\admin> bcdboot d:\windows
Boot files successfully created.
PS C:\Users\admin> bcdboot c:\windows
Boot files successfully created.



- All Windows installations use the same EFI system partition.
- All Windows installations started without problems.

KYHI said:

try this from command prompt (admin)

Code:

Dism /Image:S:\offline /Cleanup-Image /RestoreHealth /Source:S:\windows

once again assuming S is the offline OS - that command will use DISM to try and repair the OS

Click to expand...

Then maybe the Offline OS needs to be Repaired

i reformated the broken one and use the disk as storage instead. but ill come back to this if i install it again and have issues, thanks for the help

@aubergine

I had a crooked dual-boot system, both Windows 11 25H2 installations.

Disk 0 had Windows Boot Manager on Vol 1. This is a PCIe drive.

All partitions were as written on the picture.



Then I wanted to separate Windows installation. I disabled disk 0. Then Windows on disk 1 couldn't boot. It lost Boot Manager on disk 0 (volume 1).

I got error message message:



After hard work, I was able to repair - by chance, I must add - the crippled Windows. Now they boot independently. But still one Windows depend on the other.

Previously, Windows on disk 1 (SATA drive) depended on Windows on disk 0 (PCIe drive).

Now Windows on disk 0 depends on disk 1. (disk 1 has become disk 4 after separation). Yellow arrows.

Now I have lost Recovery capability on Windows installation on SATA drive (formerly disk 1).

Now I am studying if I can re-enable Recovery tools on SATA drive. I have Recovery Tools on USB recovery disk, which I used when Windows couldn't boot.

@suatcini54

If you remove the Windows boot disk from your computer, you can create a new EFI system partition using a Windows USB stick, for example:

Use the command "shrink desired=300" when you need free space for the EFI system partition from the Windows partition or data partition. Using the data partition is more recommended because then the location of the recovery partition will not change.

diskpart
list volume
select volume # (select the volume you want to shrink)
shrink desired=300
create partition efi size=300
format quick fs=fat32
assign letter=z
exit

bcdboot x:\windows /s z: /f uefi

- replace "x" with the volume letter of your Windows partition
- /s z: is your EFI system partition you assigned above
- firmware type /f uefi is not needed if you have booted Windows USB stick in UEFI mode

Restart your computer. The UEFI firmware should identifies the new EFI system partition and Windows should start normally.

suatcini54 said:

Now I am studying if I can re-enable Recovery tools on SATA drive.

Click to expand...

"If you need to repair or create a new recovery partition or having problems with the Windows 11 operating system on your PC, and the usual solutions will not fix it, you can do a repair install of Windows 11 by performing an in-place upgrade without losing anything."

@aubergine Thank you for your valuable advice. It's very much appreciated.

I reformatted the EFI partititon and repopulated it by the command

bcdboot X:\Windows /bootex /l tr-TR /S S: /f UEFI (X: being the Windows volume drive letter and S: being EFI system volume drive letter)

My two installations work quite happily now, it seems. When I did one crippled Windows installation (M.2 NVMe drive), I disabled all other drives in BIOS but still Windows created Boot Manager on a DATA partition on the same drive other than on Windows partition. Therefore, maybe I must have deleted the data partition and made it unallocated before trying to repair Windows. I did the other crippled Windows installation, this time disabling the SATA drive.

Then I attempted to re-install Windows over the current installation to restore recovery tools capability as you suggested. But unfortunately I couldn't do it. I got error 0xC1900101 - 0x20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation. I have done very many such Windows installations over current installations. This is the first time in a very long time interval, maybe more than ten years, that I had this error.

I will ignore this error as I do not need Recovery Tools partition to work. I had already created a bootable Recovery drive, which I used when performing the above operations. Windows has its quirks and peculiarities which I am not very capable of handling. Example: While trying to repair EFI partition before, Windows Boot Manager was placed on "HardDiskVolume16" when the total number of volumes was 14. Where volume 16 came from, I have no idea.

Have a nice weekend.

suatcini54 said:

I got error 0xC1900101 - 0x20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation

Click to expand...

You have to be logged in Normal Mode, not Safe Mode (Boot) for this command to work.
But other than that, Good Job!

Spunk said:

You have to be logged in Normal Mode, not Safe Mode (Boot) for this command to work.
But other than that, Good Job!

Click to expand...

I am sorry I couldn't understand what you meant with your above sentence. I mounted Windows image (same version and edition) and ran setup.exe. Windows started to install. Installer came up to 100% and restarted. Then I got this error message: Error: 0xC1900101 - 0x20017 The installation failed in the SAFE_OS phase with an error during BOOT operation

SAFE_OS phase is Windows installation routine at early stages, I believe. I was logged in to my admin account as usual, not in Safe Mode, and ran Setup.exe from the mounted Windows image.