Solved Installing Windows 11 Lite and later update to Windows 11 Pro/Home

jhun12 · Feb 12, 2023

cereberus said:
You have to substitute # with right drive letter.

yes! I did that.

bcdboot D:\windows /p / d

my windows 8.1 drive letter was now in drive D after put HDD back on internal sata. so I put letter D.

but when I choose windows 8.1 on the startup boot menu, then there's the error "your pc need to repair". but if I do by pressing f9 and choose on the two drives there, then there's no problem, i am able to boot windows 8.1 without error.

jhun12 · Feb 12, 2023

jimbo45 said:
Hi there
Easy to install as many Windows systems as you want (and space you have for) on any device.

In your case the easiest is simply to create a SINGLE EFI partition on what will be your main boot disk
Then install windows to other partitions (or disks) via preferably dism /Apply-Image but and then run bcdboot.exe to apply the bootloader to the main EFI partition.

Then at boot the standard Windows boot menu GUI will appear --no need to go into the computers own BIOS to select the boot disk.

For example :
View attachment 52511

@jhun12

get into diskpart and ensure there's an EFI partition and assign it say letter S, and the disk / partition you've got a windows install on is W. You need a SINGLE UEFI partition on the drive you will use as the primary boot drive.

then exit diskpart and now cd : W:\Windows\system32

Then to check type cd W: (to make sure you are executing from the installed windows system (/windows/system32)

bcdboot w:\windows / s S : /f UEFI

do the same for any other windows install (keep the same S letter for the UEFI partition and change the W letter for the new install.

Try and keep just OS on the main windows installs and have data etc stored separately so you don't have to re-create / recover that data if you re-install the OS.

NOTE : you only need a SINGLE EFI partition on the main boot disk -- that's the trick so the bootloader will load the menu at boot and the relevant disks etc will be booted from the menu.

cheers
jimbo

do i need to do the windows 11 installation again?

what I did was
1.take out the hdd in internal sata and put ssd there
2.install windows 11 by using bootable usb drive.
(the ssd was converted from mbr to gpt, and then in the rufus setting option, i set also to gpt before starting creating the boot installation).
3.remove ssd and put back hdd.
4.put ssd inside caddy and connect it in cd-rom drive.
5.boot in windows 11 then set
bcdboot D:\windows /p / d
(Windows 11 is Drive C,
Windows 8.1 is Drive D)

jhun12 · Feb 12, 2023

@jimbo45

can you make me a step by step tutorial?

jhun12 · Feb 12, 2023

Scott said:
Also, whichever OS you have booted will have the drive letter C.
When you manage to boot into 8.1, it should have the drive letter C.

Right now I'm booted into Windows 11 and it's drive letter is C.
My Windows 10 drive is drive letter F.

View attachment 52512

When I boot into Windows 10 it's drive letter will be C, and my Win 11 drive will be H.

oh. now I know.
I thought when drive letter swapped, it will get you into troubles. thank you @Scott for clarifying this to me.

jhun12 · Feb 12, 2023

@Scott so I booted in windows 11 and see diskpart>list disk

there's no efi there.

but on the disk management, there's an efi system partition with 100mb in size.

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

@jimbo45 so I booted in windows 11 and see diskpart>list disk

there's no efi there.

but on the disk management, there's an efi system partition with 100mb in size.

questions:
1. How to verify if I have already an efi partition?
2. What's wrong with this code,
bcdboot D:\windows /p / d
as this one I have followed..

Scott · Feb 13, 2023

jhun12 said:
@jimbo45 so I booted in windows 11 and see diskpart>list disk

there's no efi there.

That's because you're listing the disks. the EFI partition is a partition on the disk. Select the disk you want to see and type

Code:

list part

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

when i booted in windows 11

my windows 8.1 (hdd) is on drive d
windows 11(ssd) is on drive c

by using diskpart> list volume,
i assigned the drive letter of efi partition to letter G:

when i did
bcdboot D:\windows / s G : /f UEFI

but the error is
failure when attempting to copy boot files.

can someone please help me

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

jhun12 said:
when i booted in windows 11

my windows 8.1 (hdd) is on drive d
windows 11(ssd) is on drive c

by using diskpart> list volume,
i assigned the drive letter of efi partition to letter G:

when i did
bcdboot D:\windows / s G : /f UEFI

but the error is
failure when attempting to copy boot files.

can someone please help me

so i just need to run as admin the cmd and then it was boot files successfully created.

but still, i can't boot into windows 8.1
using the startup boot menu.

i tried to enter cmd in startup repair, and type
bootrec /fixmbr
the operation completed successfully.

bootrec /fixboot
access is denied

bootrec rebuildbcd
successfully scanned windows installation
total identified windows installations:1
[1] F:\Windows.old\windows
Add installation to boot list? when I enter Y,
The system cannot find the path specified.

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

jhun12 said:
when i booted in windows 11

my windows 8.1 (hdd) is on drive d
windows 11(ssd) is on drive c

by using diskpart> list volume,
i assigned the drive letter of efi partition to letter G:

when i did
bcdboot D:\windows / s G : /f UEFI

but the error is
failure when attempting to copy boot files.

can someone please help me

so i just need to run as admin and then it was boot files successfully created.

but still, i can't boot into windows 8.1
using the startup boot menu.

also everytime I restart the laptop. the drive letter that I assigned to the efi always gone.

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

I remember when I accidentally installed windows 11 twice. there's a reminder on windows old, that I cannot use or access that.

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

Scott said:
That's because you're listing the disks. the EFI partition is a partition on the disk. Select the disk you want to see and type

Code:

list part

View attachment 52687

when I did that.
list part
it says no partition

because my ssd was newly formatted and only windows 11 system was there.

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

MY PROBLEM HAS BEEN SOLVED!!!

I just need to do this settings on my laptop BIOS setup.

Legacy Support: Enable
Secure Boot: Disable

source: Fixing “Winload.efi is Missing or Contains Errors” in Windows 10 | Windows OS Hub

and now, I can boot to Windows 8.1 without any problems.

so there's no wrong with the code
bcdboot D:\windows /p / d

but I had to do so many codes, so I don't know if what worked...

Thank you to all users, who replied to this thread.

jhun12 · Feb 13, 2023

My problems with Windows 11.
1. Can't adjust brightness.
2. No sleep option in start menu

spapakons · Feb 14, 2023

jhun12 said:
My problems with Windows 11.
1. Can't adjust brightness.
2. No sleep option in start menu

1) You probably have Microsoft Basic Display Adapter which is a generic graphics driver without hardware acceleration, supports only standard screen resolutions (800x600, 1024x768, 1280x1024 etc) and you cannot adjust brightness. Update the graphics drivers.
2) Some drivers are missing, check Device Manager for devices with a yellow ! or without drivers. Install all drivers and Standby (sleep l) should be enabled.

spapakons · Feb 14, 2023

An alternative to bcdedit, install EasyBCD. It allows you to easily add/remove boot entries, rename them to a more friendly description, correct faulty entries and more.