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Cannot boot Windows 10 after attempting a Hackintosh

Anonymous
2019-04-29T18:03:36+00:00

Hello,

recently I was attempting a Hackintosh. My goal was to do a dual-boot with Windows and MacOS. Knowing I had a Ryzen CPU I knew this was going to be hard but I finally found a video to follow. Halfway through the tutorial, I realized that the tutorial was about single booting MacOS. At this point, I was at the MacOS Mojave boot installation screen. (BTW I used Clover, not sure if that's important to note) So I booted back to Windows 10 and partitioned a second drive of about 100GB to dedicate to MacOS. I booted back to the MacOS installation screen and I tried formatting the drive. The format was successful however, the installation page did not allow me to install Mojave. So I wanted to boot back to Windows to try to solve the issue however this time my system does not boot Windows anymore. I have already made a bootable Windows 10 installation USB stick and used that to attempt a "Startup Repair" however that was unsuccessful. I tried to work with Diskpart and tried to make my "C:" active but I got an error saying "Selected disk is not a fixed MBR disk".

NOTE: I am able to access my files through "System Image Recovery" and view and copy/paste the files inside my drive. So I believe that it is still healthy. BUT the 100GB that allocated for MacOS is no longer there to be seen and my C drive has decreased by 100GB. I also never formatted my C drive.

Any help will be very much appreciated. Thank you for your time.

Windows for home | Windows 10 | Windows update

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  1. Anonymous
    2019-04-29T18:19:26+00:00

    Hi Arvin. I'm Greg, an installation specialist and 9 year Windows MVP here to help you.

    The modern UEFI firmware replacing the BIOS doesn't use Active flags and requires Windows Boot Manager to be set first at all times in Boot Priority Order, UEFI enabled, CSM disabled (unless you're multi-booting another hard drive with older Legacy install), Secure Boot and Fast Boot sometimes disabled long enough to install, use the Boot Menu key to trigger media and/or repair.

    If Startup Repairs cannot start Windows, can you browse in with a bootable partition manager to see the partition structure and if the required EFI System partition of 100-500mb is present?

    If so you can try Rebuilding the BCD from this tutorial which covers everything possible is here for Troubleshooting Windows 10 Failure to Start: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...

    If that fails then you can reinstall Windows 10 to a separate partition which should configure a Dual Boot with the old install and get it started that way. Then you can delete the rescue install in Disk Mgmt and if you want extend C over it.

    You can also follow the illustrated steps in this link which compile the best possible Clean Install of Windows which will stay that way as long as you stick with the tools and methods given, has zero reported problems, and is better than any amount of money could buy: http://answers.microsoft.com/en-us/windows/wiki...

    I hope this helps. Feel free to ask back any questions and keep me posted. If you'll wait to rate whether my post helped you, I will keep working with you until it's resolved.

    ________________________________________________________

    Standard Disclaimer: There are links to non-Microsoft websites. The pages appear to be providing accurate, safe information. Watch out for ads on the sites that may advertise products frequently classified as a PUP (Potentially Unwanted Products). Thoroughly research any product advertised on the sites before you decide to download and install it.

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  2. Anonymous
    2019-04-30T00:48:08+00:00

    Sorry I thought I had answered this earlier.

    I wrote earlier about how to assign a drive letter for EFI System partition which should contain the Boot folder, never on C for a UEFI install. Then you can export it so the Rebuild BCD command has a better chance of working.

    I'd also try Startup Repair again.

    Were you able to boot in with a partition manager to see the partition structure, whether there even is an EFI System partition? You can use Easeus or Partition Wizard: http://www.partitionwizard.com/download.html

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  3. Anonymous
    2019-04-29T19:21:13+00:00

    Did you create it using only latest media from Media Creation Tool? Did it complete Startup Repair properly? What did it report?

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  4. Anonymous
    2019-04-29T18:59:29+00:00

    Try exporting the BCD which often is required for it to boot. Remember that the EFI System partition holding boot files may not be C so you'll have to use Diskpart to List Vol, determine which it is, then Sel Vol # (replacing # with Vol number) and Assign to issue drive letter.

    Rebuild doesn't always work. You may need to do the rescue install which takes less than an hour and will get the old install booting more often than not, unless it is crippled. It rewrites the boot files.

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  5. Anonymous
    2019-04-29T18:56:17+00:00

    Hi,

    thank you for the reply. So I attempted your first solution. I got to the point of "bootrec /rebuildbcd" and it does successfully find the Windows installation but when I respond with "Y" it says "Element not found.". Is there anything that I may be forgetting here?

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