Usb Drive Booting Throws Error - 0xc000000e Options

[Karthik V]

I tried to setup a bootable USB drive as given in Windows PE docs. I even tried all the variations I could get on the net. But I get into this error every time:

Windows Boot Manager

(and some bla bla about contacting manufacturer or sys admin)

File: \Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.


Note that my UFD is 75 GB. I couldn't partition it with FAT32 since it is too big, so I used diskpart to create a primary partition of 300 MB and formatted it with FAT32. The rest of the space is ununsed.

One variation I tried was replacing the BCD file with a fresh one created using bcdedit tool. That didn't help.

[jaclaz]

See this thread:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18971

jaclaz

[Karthik V]

See this thread:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18971

jaclaz

Sorry it has taken a while to respond. Thanks for the link. Though my question was about making a bootable UFD with RAM disk, this is a good alternative. However, I couldn't get it working, probably because I didn't understand a few things. It'd be great if you can clarify these:

Using diskpart, I cleaned a 75 GB UFD, formatted it with ntfs, named it E:, applied the boot.wim image on it etc. While creating the new BCD store, I'm confused with these steps:

Bcdedit –store c:\boot\BCD –set GUID osdevice partition=c:

I replaced the partition=C: with E:. I did the same to the other command lines that involved c:. I hope this is correct.

Also, I skipped this line
Bcdedit -import E:\boot\BCD

Because it seems to corrupt my main HDD (C:)'s bcd file. Please let me know if this is fine.

Now, when I boot using the UFD, I get this error:
A disk read error occurred
Press ctrl-alt-del to restart

As a 2nd attempt, I tried creating 2 primary partitions on the UFD, a 1 GB part with fat32 and the rest with ntfs. I repeated the same procedure on the fat32 partition and booted. I got this error:

Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.
File: \boot\bcd
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.


My 3rd attempt was to repeat the above steps with FAT partition instead of FAT32, but I got the same error I got with the FAT32 partition.

I hope you read this post, since it has been a while. If I don't get a reply soon, let me try posting it as a new thread!

[jaclaz]

Actually, diddy is the real expert on this.

I am posting a link to this thread in his "main" one:
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?showtopic=18971

jaclaz

[diddy]

Actually, diddy is the real expert on this.

@jaclaz
I'm not sure expert is the correct term - in fact it's scary being referred to in such a way.

@Karthik V
I've only really played around with editing BCD and unfortunately there seems to be a bit of a lack of documentation at the moment. I have noticed that the boot partition seems to have a BOOT folder with BCD created at some point but can't actually remember if this is when the image is applied to the HDD, or when edited (or both). If you have an existing BOOT\BCD on your boot partition it seems to get edited whenever you use BCDEdit on another partition (e.g. if editing BCD on E: (your UFD drive) your boot partitions BCD will also get edited and possibly corrupted). I'd definitely recommend backing up this file but am not sure if it restores ok - I can't see any reason why it shouldn't I just haven't tried it. I'm off out and have limited time at the moment. The only thing I can suggest right now is to make sure that your UFD is set as the first boot device in BIOS (if you haven't already tried that). If you are using a third party boot manager such as GRUB4DOS then make sure that the UFD is mapped as (hd0) and directly chainload BCD (sorry I meant bootmgr - thanks d4vr0s).

I'll try checking this thread latter but might be out for a while.

diddy

This post has been edited by diddy: Mar 18 2007, 03:33 PM

[jaclaz]

I'm not sure expert is the correct term - in fact it's scary being referred to in such a way.

No need to worry, it was intended as a comparative sentence, like in:

diddy is more expert than I am...

...and being my level of experience with WinPE 2.0/bcd almost, but not quite, completely unlike existing.....

jaclaz

This post has been edited by jaclaz: Mar 18 2007, 09:17 AM

[diddy]

@jaclaz
First you flatter me my calling me an expert and then your shoot me down in flames by saying I'm an expert in this area compared to you as your experiece is non-existant - I like your style

@Karthik V
Not sure if this helps however I googled your error message and found this on lockergnome here

Danny:
Follow the 2 entries by "sgillbee" at
http://www.pro-networks.org/forum/viewtopic.php?t=86031, it may solve your problem with this error.

Just in case the link gets broken sgillbee's second post -

It turns out my install problem has nothing to do with how I'm installing Vista at all.

My problem was with my BIOS settings. The 2nd hard-disk was not listed as a bootable device.

It turns out that Vista requires its system drive to be in the BIOS' list of bootable devices, even if that drive is secondary and the boot loader is running from a drive that _is_ already in the boot device list (as is my case).

Once I added the second HDD to my list of bootable devices, I had no problems launching the OS and was able to continue with the install (actually, upgrade since I was now continuing my upgrade install scenario).

My first reaction to this was angry frustration that Microsoft was do something this boneheaded. After all, the boot drive is really the C: drive where the boot loader is running, right?

Then I thought about it a bit. I realized that this is a bone-fide security feature. You don't want people to be able to add a drive to a system and boot a rogue OS. That would potentially give access to other drives on the system as well as provide network access because the NIC is trusted. So Vista uses the BIOS as a security measure. If you have explicitly limited the devices that are authorized to boot and password protected your BIOS (which I had) then it stands to reason that Vista should fail to boot from a drive that is not granted boot privileges from the BIOS.

Then I got frustrated again. Why can't Vista give a useful error message!?! Error 0xc000000e is not even remotely useful in diagnosing the root problem.

Anyways, problem solved. Hopefully this will help some others track down similar problems.

Good luck

diddy

[d4vr0s]

If you are using a third party boot manager such as GRUB4DOS then make sure that the UFD is mapped as (hd0) and directly chainload BCD.

You guys know that BCD file is a registry hive right?

You can chainload the bootmgr with grub4dos, it will load the BCD file automatically (as long as it's in the \boot folder)

This post has been edited by d4vr0s: Mar 18 2007, 03:00 PM

[diddy]

You guys know that BCD file is a registry hive right?

You can chainload the bootmgr with grub4dos, it will load the BCD file automatically (as long as it's in the \boot folder)

Thanks for pointing out my error d4vr0s - in my rush to get out earlier I confused Bootmgr with BCD. I'll edit my post above to avoid any confusion.

Sorry for any problems this might have caused

diddy

p.s. No - I didn't know BCD was a reg hive.

[jaclaz]

p.s. No - I didn't know BCD was a reg hive.

..and that makes TWO of us not knowing it, thanks d4vros .

Probably off-topic, but I am trying to gather some info on different ways to access Registry (read hives) here:
http://www.boot-land.net/forums/Running-re...ives-t1703.html

have a look at it, maybe I stumbled across something that might be useful for some other uses.

jaclaz

[Karthik V]

@Karthik V
Not sure if this helps however I googled your error message and found this on lockergnome here
Just in case the link gets broken sgillbee's second post -
Good luck

diddy

Thanks diddy. I had stumbled upon this link myself while googling the error, but that doesn't seem to help - I have the USB drive on my boot list.

I have noticed that the boot partition seems to have a BOOT folder with BCD created at some point but can't actually remember if this is when the image is applied to the HDD, or when edited (or both). If you have an existing BOOT\BCD on your boot partition it seems to get edited whenever you use BCDEdit on another partition (e.g. if editing BCD on E: (your UFD drive) your boot partitions BCD will also get edited and possibly corrupted).
diddy

I believe that the BCD file is created on the HDD when the image is applied. I don't see a reason why this would change every time I edit a bcd store on a different drive. If I understand right, while using the -createstore option, we just create a fresh file and store all the config inside it. Ideally, this should affect the main BCD in no way. If -import option is used, the data from this file is imported into the main BCD (stored in \boot on the HDD).

[d4vr0s]

I'm pretty sure if you run bcdedit alone (without specifying a file) it modifys the BCD file on the boot partition.
Have you guys looked over this page?
http://technet2.microsoft.com/WindowsVista...4af7781033.mspx

This post has been edited by d4vr0s: Mar 19 2007, 04:02 PM

[ktp]

I got the same problem as Karthik V's. Still looking for a solution. Note that my key boots WinPE/VistaPE OK
on one old laptop, but failed with a 2 year-old one: 0xc000000e error in file \boot\bcd as mentioned.

[ktp]

Summmary:
I have a VistaPE/WinPE CD that boots OK on my two laptops: L1 (6-year old, 512 MB RAM) and L2 (2-year old, 2GB RAM).
I create a bootable USB key from the above CD (FAT32, bootmgr installed with bootsect or using grub4dos to load bootmgr, and copy all
necsessary files). The key boots surprisingly OK on laptop L1 but fails on laptop L2. Message:

File: \Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: An error occurred while attempting to read the boot configuration data.


Now eureka! I run into the following topic by diddy:

Boot WinPE from HDD (without RAM load)
http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...=18971&st=0

It gives me an idea to try. My USB key used in fact the ramdisk image method (the one used with the CD, through boot.wim).
With BartPE I never used the sdi/ramdisk method for several reasons (limitation of ramdisk.sys to 500 MB max, could not run
on PC with small RAM, cannot put all program files as I would like to). So I always used the method of \i386 (minint) and \programs directories.
Now to bypass the problem with ramdisk with WinPE and laptop L2, if I change this by using the key as a hard disk (diddy's topic),
this should work. So I will try it and post the result.


Notes:

1- Apparently Imagex is an image extractor (I guess). I found that wimutil.exe could be used to mount (map)
the boot.wim file to a directory, then I can copy the files to USB key instead of using ImageX.

I see that the content of boot.wim is the following directories:
Program Files
ProgramData
sources
Users
Windows

Fortunately all the above directories has no name conflict with BartPE (since my key is built with multiboot environment).
So with grub4dos I would be able to boot either BartPE and WinPE/VistaPE.

2- The boot process without using the RAM disk is probably slower (with ramdisk it takes only 1-2 mn on the key to get to
a full VistaPE desktop environment).

3- Practically in order to prevent the key wear out (lifetime) by multiples copy/move/delete files to the key, I will use an external USB2 HDD which also
must be faster and has no problem of limited write cycles as with USB key. If everything is OK then I will finalize with the key.

[ktp]

Well the result is here : bad ! :-(

I got the error :

File: \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe
Status: 0xc000000e
Info: The selected entry could not be loaded because the application is missing or corrupt.

My modified bcd file is (seen with bcdedit /store f:\boot\bcd /enum) :

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier {bootmgr}
device boot
description Boot Manager
displayorder {d9cc7f2e-5f00-11dc-8152-005056c00008}

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier {d9cc7f2e-5f00-11dc-8152-005056c00008}
device partition=C:
path \windows\system32\boot\winload.exe
description WINPE
osdevice partition=C:
systemroot \windows
detecthal Yes
winpe Yes


Looks like a drive detection problem. With ramdisk method on laptop L1, the USB key is assigned letter F:
although it is the first hard drive set in BIOS (to allow boot from USB key).

Any idea ?

[ktp]

I made few progress now: no more 0xc000000e error, by setting in the BCD
device boot
osdevice boot

instead of
device partition=C:
osdevice partition=C:

So now the WinPE boots, progression bar etc..., but then blue screen of death with the dreaded 0x7b INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE.
(same problem encounterd by jpmorgan in this thread http://www.911cd.net/forums//index.php?sho...0&start=20).
Looks like I need a patch like Dietmar's ntdetect.com for XP so that Vista can be booted from external USB HDD (or USB key).

Any help please ?

This post has been edited by ktp: Sep 10 2007, 12:34 PM

[ktp]

Success! Problem solved!

Summary: in previous post I had same problem as Karthik V: on one of my laptop, my key cannot boot VistaPE.
The error pointed by Vista bootmgr is \boot\BCD, status 0xc000000e.
Of course there is no problem with this file (content), and check disk is OK, no file system errors, same key used on both laptops.
After several experimentations, now I find out a solution that works on both of my laptops.

Structure of the USB key:
U:\Programs (from Vista PE)
U:\vistape.ima (300 MB)
U:\vistape.cd (0 byte)
U:\menu.lst (grub4dos configuration file)
U:\grldr (from grub4dos)
(note: I used grub4dos, so I do not need U:\bootmgr file).


Contents of vistape.ima
a:\bootmgr
a:\boot (3.4 MB)
a:\sources (210 MB)

Notes:
1) The vistape.cd file in the root of the USB key is important so that VistaPE loader/wpeinit.exe can detect the
system drive (containing \Programs directory).
2) The vistape.ima file must be contiguous in order to be mapped by grub4dos. You can use the 'contig' utility from sysinternals.com.
to verify/defragment the file. An easier way is to format the USB key and copy this file (all files in root) first, and no deleting files from the key
to avoid fragmentation.
3) To build the vistape.ima:
o use fsz (dsfo/dsfi package) or mksparse (on NTFS) to create a vistape.ima file with size about 300 MB.
o Mount it as floppy, drive letter A: with ImDisk.
o Format a: with FAT file system
o Copy bootmgr and the 2 directories \boot, \sources (from your VistaPE) to A:\
o Unmount a: (ImDisk)
o Use WinImage to set boot sector of vistape.ima (boot sector properties) to Vista Bootmgr.
o Copy vistape.ima to U:\ (root of your USB key).
o Verify that U:\vistape.ima is contigous by using the command: contig -a -v u:\vistape.ima.
4) One could try to include \programs inside vistape.ima (creating bigger floppy image), but it does not seem to work
(wpeinit did not find programs) and also it is less convenient, since by putting \programs in the USB key (writable) rather than
inside the (read-only) vistape.ima, modifications to \programs are much easier.

Content for U:\menu.lst:

CODE

title VistaPE from floppy image
find --set-root /vistape.ima
map  /vistape.ima (fd0)
map --hook
chainloader (fd0)+1
rootnoverify (fd0)

Apparently the reason for this success story is to bypass direct access to USB key by bootmgr which seems to have problem with some BIOS.
By using a "sandbox" (floppy image through grub4dos), apparently some BIOS specificity is masked.

Long live grub4dos!

[Ed_P]

Thanks for the update ktp.

And congrats on your success.