Recreate Windows boot records after performing a bare metal recovery (BMR)

Written By Tami Sutcliffe (Super Administrator)

Updated at June 28th, 2022

In the event that your recovered system does not boot, or a Blue-Screen error message appears on startup, it may be necessary to recreate the Windows boot records on the hard drive.

To recreate the Windows boot records on the hard drive:

1. Boot the system from a Windows operating system disc.

2. Click Next on the language selection page.



3. Click the Repair your Computer link. 

 

4. In the Choose an Option screen, click the Troubleshoot button.



5. In the Advanced Options screen, click the Command Prompt button.



6. In the command shell, use DOS commands to switch between disks to identify which drives are present, and to locate the recovery partition if it exists. This will likely be on C:. The recovery partition will likely appear to be empty, but will have a hidden folder named BOOT.

7. Change directory into /BOOT to verify that it exists.

8. Within BOOT, rename the existing BCD file.

For example: move BCD BCD.old

9. Run the following commands to replace the boot records

bootrec /fixmbr (Only for systems using legacy MBR BIOS, not UEFI systems)
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /RebuildBcd

10. Select Yes when prompted for Windows instances to install.

11. Reboot and verify that the system boots normally.



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