How to define boot parameters ?

Hello
After some problems and bott fixes, it seems I came up with an "unclear" situation
I cannot let the boot process run automatically and I am oblige to select the boot unit each time I start my computer
Do, I bought and installed EasyBCD to see how my boot was organized
I believe there some unwnted entry I could remove ... but I don't know which one !
I attach some screen captures of EasyyBCD information
Thanks for any help or recommendation you could provide
Have a good week-end

PS : As you can notice from the screen captures, english is not my native language ... I'm sorry

I don't know much about EasyyBCD, but you want to delete unwanted boot entries from Boot tap of msconfig (System Configuration) tool.

From the screenshots I see you have Entry #1 is some CD-ROM, Entry #2 which is the UEFI mode option to boot Windows 11 from C:. Entry #3 is the UEFI boot option to boot Windows from another drive, and Entry #4 is the respective Legacy BIOS mode for booting Windows 11 from C: which is the current default. Change default to Entry #2 and see of that works. If it does, you can safely remove the other entries, unless you dual boot Windows 11 from C: with some other Windows version on another disk.

Thank you very much ! It seems you are busy with my posts !!!!!
Will try you recommendations
Another detail : I have a "full backup" of my system disk on an external SSD I can plug in an USB port just in case (I've done it with EASEUS Partition Manager "Clone" option) - Would it be possible to "include" this external device in the boot process ?

Have a good week-end

Hello again
I removed Entry # 2 and rebooted my computer
1) There is no "automatic correct boot" and I'm obliged to manually select in the BIOS boot menu to get a correct boot
2) Some entry have been removed in Easy BCD

Is there a way to "force" the Boot at startup, so I would not have to select it manually every time I start my computer ?

Thanks

sfleury said:

Is there a way to "force" the Boot at startup, so I would not have to select it manually every time I start my computer ?

Click to expand...

Go into your Bios and set the boot option that you want.


Denis

sfleury said:

Thank you very much ! It seems you are busy with my posts !!!!!
Will try you recommendations
Another detail : I have a "full backup" of my system disk on an external SSD I can plug in an USB port just in case (I've done it with EASEUS Partition Manager "Clone" option) - Would it be possible to "include" this external device in the boot process ?

Have a good week-end

Click to expand...

If you mean an exact copy (clone) on an external USB hard disk, no Windows is not allowed to boot from USB unless you change one value in Registry to change type from standard system to Windows-to-Go system. I don't remember which value that is. If you do that you can boot from USB and have all your data and applications, but you cannot upgrade to a newer version. To upgrade you must change the value again from Windows-to-Go to standard system. Of course this would work if you could remove the disk from the USB enclosure and put it inside the computer to boot it as standard system. An alternative is to create a virtual machine, connect the USB disk and configure it as the virtual machine's hard disk (advanced settings, instead of virtual disk use a physical disk). This would allow you to boot it so you can change the Registry value as required.

Try3 said:

Go into your Bios and set the boot option that you want.

Click to expand...

Set the Windows Boot Manager associated with the drive containing Windows 11 as Boot Option #1.

Please take no offense from this post. It is just my observation from reading all your threads regarding going from from 10 to 11 ( and trying to keep up with the chain of events as they took place). https://www.elevenforum.com/search/1251537/?c[users]=sfleury&o=relevance

Admittedly it has not all been clear to me but I do feel some of your choices to have been imprudent. If I'm reading it right, I can see how your bootloader got messed up and I don't think anyone here can be certain of the state of your system. It is well known that a clone of the system drive attached at the same time as is the system drive can confuse the system's firmware and lead to unexpected boot behavior.

If you cloned your hard disk to an external USB disk, you cannot just swap disks and resume working, that would be the case if you cloned to an internal SATA or NVMe disk, matching your original disk. With an external USB hard disk you have to either remove it from the USB enclosure and put it inside the computer, or change a Registry setting to switch from standard Windows system to Windows-to-Go, like I said in my previous reply. If you booted in Windows with both disks connected, chances are that one of the disks has different drive letter than the appropriate C, so Windows can't boot anyway until you change it back to C. To do that, better leave only the specific disk connected, you need a WinPE live USB that is a USB flash drive that you can boot into Windows environment. If you choose to create one using Sergei Strelec WinPE ISO which contains Windows 10/11 environment with many diagnostic tools, there is a specific utility to fix drive letters.


If you are lucky enough and the drive letters haven't changed, but only the default boot entry changed, you can load UEFI firmware (aka BIOS) and make sure you set higher boot priority to the desired disk, as others suggested. If you also want to change the order of the UEFI boot entries or rename them to something more convenient, such as "Windows 11 on WD", then you can use the EasyUEFI utiility. You can even select the default boot entry and delete unwanted entries.

Does "easy bcd" even work with UEFI? I was thinking it doesn't ... only works with old legacy stuff.

Anyway, last time I tried to use it, it made a real mess, But I had a recent macrium reflect image so I could restore everything

No, Easy BCD doesn't work with UEFI boot entries l. I was experimenting with some alternative operating systems including Mac OS X 10.8 Mountain Lion on my main PC (see 2nd system specs) which was booting in UEFI mode and created a Mac OS X boot entry in my BIOS. When I was done, I tried to delete that boot entry but my BIOS didn't have a delete function. So I used Easy BCD, but this only works with Legacy BIOS boot entries, not UEFI. After some Googling I discovered Easy UEFI that works with both UEFI and Legacy boot entries, but would not load in my Legacy BIOS Windows installation. I had to create a Sergei Strelec WinPE USB flash drive in GPT with Rufus so I could boot in UEFI mode and load a live Windows environment from which I used Easy UEFI to delete the unwanted boot entries. You shouldn't have any issues because you run UEFI mode Windows installation, so you only need to get Easy UEFI. Don't buy it, see if you can do it with the trial version.

jimminy said:

Does "easy bcd" even work with UEFI? I was thinking it doesn't ... only works with old legacy stuff.

Click to expand...

I haven't used EasyBCD or EasyUEFI before, so I tested both in a virtual machine with Windows 11 installed in UEFI/GPT mode.


EasyBCD does work to some extent on UEFI systems. It allows you to edit boot entries in the Windows BCD store (see images below), but many of its other multiboot functions are unavailable in UEFI mode.

EasyBCD itself displays this warning:

"EasyBCD has detected that your machine is currently booting in EFI mode. Due to limitations set by Microsoft, many of EasyBCD's multi-booting features cannot be used in EFI mode and have been disabled."





On a UEFI Windows installation, the system BCD store is located on the EFI system partition. Boot Configuration Data (BCD) is a firmware-independent database that stores Windows boot-time configuration data. Among other things, it tells Windows Boot Manager which Windows boot loader entries are available and how they should be started.

If you only need basic management of Windows boot-menu entries, EasyBCD may be unnecessary because Windows already provides the System Configuration (msconfig) tool. Deleting a boot entry from the Boot tab in msconfig does not delete the corresponding Windows installation or its files; it removes the boot entry from the BCD store.

You can also edit BCD boot entries using EasyUEFI.


Image below: EasyUEFI: Manage BCD Boot Option



EasyUEFI additionally allows you to manage UEFI firmware boot entries stored in NVRAM (Non-Volatile Random-Access Memory). These are separate from the Windows OS-loader entries in the BCD store.

Image below: EasyUEFI: Manage EFI Boot Option



Normally, Windows Setup creates a Windows Boot Manager firmware entry in NVRAM that points to \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi on the EFI system partition.

UEFI NVRAM entry → bootmgfw.efi → BCD store → winload.efi (the OS loader for UEFI-based systems)

\EFI\Microsoft\Boot\bootmgfw.efi is launched via a firmware boot entry stored in NVRAM.

\EFI\Boot\bootx64.efi is the default fallback boot path defined by the UEFI specification and is used when no valid NVRAM boot entry is found.

Or bootice

select easy mode if you are new to this stuff

My favourite...

Yes diskgenius is excellent for many things. It does not include a bcd editor

bootice does

ChatGPT:

One correction to our earlier simplified diagram​

Our earlier:

UEFI NVRAM boot entry → bootmgfw.efi → BCD store → winload.efi

Click to expand...

is fine for explaining the normal boot path.

But it shouldn't be used to infer that every item called “Windows Boot Manager” displayed by EasyBCD represents the first element in that sequence.

The name Windows Boot Manager isn't sufficient to establish what kind of object it is. The identifier and other BCD properties matter.

If the OP had posted the output of:

bcdedit /enum all /v

and:

bcdedit /enum firmware /v

we could have mapped those EasyBCD GUIDs precisely and determined what type of BCD objects they were. Unfortunately, the screenshots don't contain enough of their underlying properties to do that with certainty.

So your original statement remains essentially correct:

EasyBCD manages the Windows BCD store located on the EFI system partition; it does not manage the UEFI firmware boot entries stored in NVRAM.

Click to expand...

The “Windows Boot Manager” seen under Edit Boot Menu does not contradict that. In these screenshots, it appears to be a BCD entry named Windows Boot Manager, not the firmware's NVRAM Windows Boot Manager boot entry.

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The two commands answer somewhat different questions:

• bcdedit /enum all /v — enumerates all BCD objects in the system BCD store, with their full identifiers.
• bcdedit /enum firmware /v — enumerates firmware applications/UEFI-related entries, which is useful for comparing the BCD configuration with the firmware boot configuration.

Click to expand...