Windows 8 Trouble booting a Windows system

Okaghana

New Member
A few days ago my Laptop crashed and refused to boot again. It gave me the 0xc000225 error message and told me, that there is a error in my bootfiles. The Laptop is a Toshiba Satellite Pro C870 which originally ran Windows 8 64bit, but was upgraded to Windows 8.1 64bit

First I tried to repair it with the help of an Windows 8 installation disk. I ran the bootrec commands in the console and also tried the standard startup-repair, but nothing could fix it. I then discovered this tool on the internet, which uses a modified Ubuntu-Live System with a preinstalled tool called "boot-repair" to fix boot sectors, but even it couldn't help me with the problem, although it claims to even repair windows boots.

After that I tried out lots of other things with the Ubuntu live system, like LiLo or the MBR-Package to restore my boot, but with none of them i managed to make the Laptop start up again.

The current state is the following: Windows does still not start and gives me the following error message:

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Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.

[...]

File: \EFI\Microsoft\Boot\BCD
Status: 0xc0000225
Info: Boot Configuration Data for your PC is missing or contains errors

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I just tried to run the bootrec-commands again. They all worked fine, with the exception of the /RebuildBcd command, which just prompted me if i would like to add my volume C: to the boot, where i obviously answered yes, but just got told that:

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The Volume does not contain a recognized file system
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I also tried running bcdedit, but I got the error message

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The boot configuration data store could not be opened. The System cannot find the file specified.
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I slowly ran out of ideas and dont know what I can do anymore.
I hope you can help me with my Problem
 

_Pete_

Active Member
Looks like your hard drive is on the blink. Not a lot you can do other than replace it and re-install Windows. Hope you have done your backups.
 

AlienMenace

Well-Known Member
Yea, it looks like it died on you. If you get a new drive, go for an SSD. And then reinstall Windows on it.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
What brand of hard drive is it? I would recommend doing a hard drive diagnostic first to verify the drive is bad before spending the money on a new one.
 

_Pete_

Active Member
Good grief. Read the error number. What is the point in fannying around? By the time you have found a reliable program to do that, and you will not find a reliable free one, set it all up and deciphered what the parameters mean you might as well have spent a few dollars and replaced the hard drive. That error number is a "virtual" guarantee that the hard drive is dead along with all his all his files unless he has been backing up.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Good grief. Read the error number. What is the point in fannying around? By the time you have found a reliable program to do that, and you will not find a reliable free one, set it all up and deciphered what the parameters mean you might as well have spent a few dollars and replaced the hard drive. That error number is a "virtual" guarantee that the hard drive is dead along with all his all his files unless he has been backing up.
Damn, what kind of crazy stuff are you on? All that error tells you is that there is something going on with the boot files, doesn't say anything about the drive may be bad. What's the harm in doing a hard drive diagnostic to verify if the drive is good? I just worked on a pc that I thought the HDD was dying, system was slow as hell. Turns out the OS was just corrupt, reinstalled and its back to being fast.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Good grief. Read the error number. What is the point in fannying around? By the time you have found a reliable program to do that, and you will not find a reliable free one, set it all up and deciphered what the parameters mean you might as well have spent a few dollars and replaced the hard drive. That error number is a "virtual" guarantee that the hard drive is dead along with all his all his files unless he has been backing up.
I would not want you diagnosing my stuff. The jumping to conclusions and flat incorrect information is alarming. John's spot on, this points to boot files. There's no "Virtual guarantee" anywhere that the drive is bad. Given the circumstances yeah that's probably what's going on but a simple hard drive test is not complicated, and if it is for you then maybe consider a different field.
 

Okaghana

New Member
the hard drive is dead along with all his all his files unless he has been backing up.
Ok. I no expert (obviously), but the files are still there. As I said: I started an Ubuntu-Live system and could easily access the files on the drive. Its just the boot that is not working. Although i have to admit: Ubuntu's Disk Manager warned me about the bad state of the Harddrive. I really thin that only the Boot is not working correctly. Maybe I didn't stress it enough, but I fiddled a little bit around in the Ubuntu-System by trying to reinstall a new boot. I know that I shouldn't normally do that, but I always solve my electronics Problems like this. Normally works. Not this time though.

What brand of hard drive is it?
Its an Hitachi hts545050a7e380, 500GB 5400RPM. Its the standard HDD that was on the computer from the beginning. We never swapped it.

What brand of hard drive is it? I would recommend doing a hard drive diagnostic first to verify the drive is bad before spending the money on a new one.
Can Do. What tool shall I use?
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Drive fitness test, even though Hitachi was bought out by Western Digital, I would assume you could use their tool as well. What I would do is download the Hirens boot cd iso file on a different computer and burn the image to a cd, then boot to to the cd and run the test.

https://www.hirensbootcd.org/files/Hirens.BootCD.14.1.zip

Unzip it then use burning software to burn the iso image file to a cd or if the system has windows 8 or 10 on it you can just right click the file and click on burn disc image.
 

Okaghana

New Member
Hello. I'm back.
I created a bootable USB with Hiren's on it and tried to run the disk-diagnostics tools on it. 2 out of the four crashed upon startup.

I ran GSmart, which told me that the HDD "has failed" and that it will "probably die soon". I looked in the details and saw that the amount of reallocated sectors was far over the threshold (threshold was like 5, i had 70+). I also exported the log. You can see it here.

I also managed to run the HDDScan "small self-test" test, but it aborted at 50%, because the was an "error with reading"

From what I can see, it doesn't look good. I also checked files on the HDD and could access and open my pictures and, to my surprise, even could launch programs off of the drive.
 

johnb35

Administrator
Staff member
Move your files to a another drive before the drive becomes inaccessible. At least running the tests you have confirmed that the drive is bad.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Try booting another computer from the same HDD. If that doesn’t work, def the HDD fault
This is fundamentally bad advice. Putting it in another machine with different hardware and the OS will try to fix drivers and the like automatically. Not to mention boot options in the BIOS could be different. There are much better ways of testing as have already been mentioned.
 

Darren

Moderator
Staff member
Lol alright, tbf i’ve seen other members give this advice on other forums too. So now I know not to trust everyone’s advice when I have my own problems I need a resolution to :p
Well. People over the Internet have an opinion on things, that's why you want to utilize multiple sources as much as you can. I speak from experience of working in a repair shop for over 2 years and now as an IT Specialist in healthcare. Many of us on here work in industry so usually we're speaking from applicable experience and not something I read somewhere. :)
 
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