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Boot Error – This is not a Bootable Disk

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This article provides steps to resolve issues where the disk isn't bootable in an Azure Virtual Machine (VM).

Symptoms

When you use Boot diagnostics to view the screenshot of the VM, you'll see that the screenshot displays a prompt with the message 'This is not a bootable disk. Please insert a bootable floppy and press any key to try again...'.

Figure 1

Screenshot of the message.

Cause

This error message means the OS boot process couldn't locate an active system partition. This error could also mean that there's a missing reference in the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) store, preventing it from locating the Windows partition.

Solution

Process Overview

Tip

If you have a recent backup of the VM, you may try restoring the VM from the backup to fix the boot problem.

  1. Create and Access a Repair VM.

  2. Set Partition Status to Active.

  3. Fix the Disk Partition.

  4. Recommended: Before you rebuild the VM, enable serial console and memory dump collection.

  5. Rebuild the Original VM.

    Note

    When encountering this boot error, the Guest OS isn't operational. You'll be troubleshooting in offline mode to resolve this issue.

Create and Access a Repair VM

  1. Use steps 1-3 of the VM Repair Commands to prepare a Repair VM.
  2. Using Remote Desktop Connection connect to the Repair VM.

Set Partition Status to Active

Generation 1 VMs should first verify that the OS partition, which holds the BCD store is marked as active. If you have a Generation 2 VM, skip ahead to Fix the Disk Partition, as the Status flag was deprecated in the later generation.

  1. Open an elevated command prompt (cmd.exe).

  2. Enter diskpart to launch the DISKPART tool.

  3. Enter list disk to list the disks on the system and identify the attached OS VHD.

  4. Once the attached OS VHD is located, enter sel disk # to select the disk. See Figure 2, where Disk 1 is the attached OS VHD.

    Figure 2

    The diskpart window shows outputs of list disk and sel disk 1 commands. Disk 0 and Disk 1 are displayed in the table. Disk 1 is the selected disk.

  5. Once the disk is selected, enter list partition to list the partitions of the selected disk.

  6. Once the boot partition is identified, enter sel partition # to select the partition. Usually the boot partition will be around 350 MB in size. See Figure 3, where Partition 1 is the boot partition.

    Figure 3

    The diskpart window shows outputs of list partition and sel partition 1 commands. Partition 1 is the selected disk.

  7. Enter 'detail partition' to check the status of the partition. See Figure 4, where the partition is Active: No, or Figure 5, where the partition is 'Active: Yes'.

    Figure 4

    The diskpart window with output of the detail partition command when Partition 1 is set to Active No.

    Figure 5

    The diskpart window with output of the detail partition command when Partition 1 is set to Active Yes.

  8. If the partition is Not Active, enter active to change the Active flag.

  9. Check that the status change was done properly by typing detail partition.

    Figure 6

    The diskpart window with output of the detail partition command when Partition 1 is set to Active Yes.

  10. Enter exit to close the DISKPART tool and save your configuration changes.

Fix the Disk Partition

  1. Open an elevated command prompt (cmd.exe).

  2. Use the following command to run CHKDSK on the disk(s) and fix errors:

    chkdsk <DRIVE LETTER>: /f

    Adding the '/f' command option will fix any errors on the disk. Make sure to replace <DRIVE LETTER> with the letter of the attached OS VHD.

To enable memory dump collection and Serial Console, run the following script:

  1. Open an elevated command prompt session (Run as administrator).

  2. Run the following commands:

    Enable Serial Console

    bcdedit /store <VOLUME LETTER WHERE THE BCD FOLDER IS>:\boot\bcd /ems {<BOOT LOADER IDENTIFIER>} ON

    bcdedit /store <VOLUME LETTER WHERE THE BCD FOLDER IS>:\boot\bcd /emssettings EMSPORT:1 EMSBAUDRATE:115200

  3. Verify that the free space on the OS disk is as much as the memory size (RAM) on the VM.

    If there's not enough space on the OS disk, you should change the location where the memory dump file will be created and refer that to any data disk attached to the VM that has enough free space. To change the location, replace "%SystemRoot%" with the drive letter (for example, "F:") of the data disk in the below commands.

Suggested configuration to enable OS Dump

Load Broken OS Disk:

REG LOAD HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM <VOLUME LETTER OF BROKEN OS DISK>:\windows\system32\config\SYSTEM

Enable on ControlSet001:

REG ADD "HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl" /v CrashDumpEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

REG ADD "HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl" /v DumpFile /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "%SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP" /f

REG ADD "HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM\ControlSet001\Control\CrashControl" /v NMICrashDump /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Enable on ControlSet002:

REG ADD "HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\CrashControl" /v CrashDumpEnabled /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

REG ADD "HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\CrashControl" /v DumpFile /t REG_EXPAND_SZ /d "%SystemRoot%\MEMORY.DMP" /f

REG ADD "HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM\ControlSet002\Control\CrashControl" /v NMICrashDump /t REG_DWORD /d 1 /f

Unload Broken OS Disk:

REG UNLOAD HKLM\BROKENSYSTEM

Rebuild the Original VM

Use step 5 of the VM Repair Commands to reassemble the VM.

Contact us for help

If you have questions or need help, create a support request, or ask Azure community support. You can also submit product feedback to Azure feedback community.