Need help determining if I have something wrong in a BCD file on a flash drive

hsehestedt · Feb 16, 2022

I have an odd issue booting from a flash drive that suspect to be related to a BCD file problem. I'm being too dense to figure it out, wonder if someone with experience in this area has any thought.

As a simple example, let's say that I have partitions on the flash drive, each with one OS like this:

FAT32 Partition
Windows 11 Setup Media
Windows 11 Customized Sysprep Image

Each of these is on a separate partition all by itself. Preceeding the two Windows media partitions is a small 100 MB FAT32 partition. The only reason for this partition is to hold the \efi and \boot folders for the BCD since some UEFI systems won't boot from an NTFS partition.

Note that both of these are different Windows 11 distributions. The first is simply the plain Microsoft consumer editions ISO image. The second holds a couple of customized sysprep images I have made. However, when I choose to boot that customized image, it instead boots the other Windows 11 setup image.

After some experimentation, I've figured out that this happens whenever I have more than one distribution of the same operating system. It seems that it will always boot to the first image of that type in the list. For example, if I had two separate Windows 10 distributions, if would only allow me to boot to the first Windows 10 partition no matter which I select from the boot menu.

I can't help but think that there must be something in the BCD that is responsible, but for the life of me I cannot figure it out.

So long as I put a different OS on each partition, everything is fine. For example, this works flawlessly:

FAT32 Partition
Windows 10 Setup
Windows 11 Setup
Macrium Reflect Boot Disk

Below are two different views of my BCD file. The first is just a standard output of a bcdstore /enum of the relevant BCD, the second is the same BCD store but with verbose output. Anything stand out here?

NOTE: This is only the BCD for booting from a UEFI based system. This particular drive will never be used with a BIOS based system.

Code:

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {bootmgr}
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {globalsettings}
default                 {default}
displayorder            {default}
                        {77d49df3-5873-433c-8b52-72d291c7469d}
toolsdisplayorder       {memdiag}
timeout                 30
displaybootmenu         Yes

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {default}
device                  ramdisk=[E:]\sources\boot.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
path                    \windows\system32\boot\winload.efi
description             Windows 11 Setup
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
isolatedcontext         Yes
osdevice                ramdisk=[E:]\sources\boot.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
systemroot              \windows
bootmenupolicy          Standard
detecthal               Yes
winpe                   Yes
ems                     No

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {77d49df3-5873-433c-8b52-72d291c7469d}
device                  ramdisk=[F:]\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}
path                    \Windows\system32\boot\winload.efi
description             Windows 11 Sysprep Editions
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {bootloadersettings}
                        {globalsettings}
osdevice                ramdisk=[F:]\sources\boot.wim,{ramdiskoptions}


[CODE]
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default                 {7619dcc9-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
displayorder            {7619dcc9-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
                        {77d49df3-5873-433c-8b52-72d291c7469d}
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout                 30
displaybootmenu         Yes

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {7619dcc9-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
device                  ramdisk=[E:]\sources\boot.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
path                    \windows\system32\boot\winload.efi
description             Windows 11 Setup
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
isolatedcontext         Yes
osdevice                ramdisk=[E:]\sources\boot.wim,{7619dcc8-fafe-11d9-b411-000476eba25f}
systemroot              \windows
bootmenupolicy          Standard
detecthal               Yes
winpe                   Yes
ems                     No

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {77d49df3-5873-433c-8b52-72d291c7469d}
device                  ramdisk=[F:]\sources\boot.wim,{ae5534e0-a924-466c-b836-758539a3ee3a}
path                    \Windows\system32\boot\winload.efi
description             Windows 11 Sysprep Editions
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
                        {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
osdevice                ramdisk=[F:]\sources\boot.wim,{ae5534e0-a924-466c-b836-758539a3ee3a}
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {8801932e-e70e-4ce9-a7d7-47f8e63192d7}
bootmenupolicy          Standard
detecthal               Yes
winpe                   Yes

systemroot \Windows
resumeobject {8801932e-e70e-4ce9-a7d7-47f8e63192d7}
bootmenupolicy Standard
detecthal Yes
winpe Yes
[/CODE]

Need help determining if I have something wrong in a BCD file on a flash drive

hsehestedt

Well-known member

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