IT

Windows 8 – The Boot Configuration Data is missing some required information

I had to recover a Acer Aspire P3 tablet which, all of a sudden, it showed the message below:

IMG-20141117-WA0006

File: BCD Error Code: 0xc0000034

Recovery
Your PC needs to be repaired
The Boot Configuration Data file is missing some required information.
File: \BCD
Error Code: 0xc0000034
...

Following few tutorials on the internet ended up as wasted time as any bcdedit commands returned:
The requested system device cannot be found

There were two things that went wrong:
a) tablet was set to boot in UEFI mode, and to get it to boot from a USB Stick (containing Windows 8 Installation iso written with Rufus) the boot type had to be changed to Legacy. To access the BIOS, the Volume UP + Power should be used – and order of the bootable disks should be changed so that USBs are on top.
b) Although many tutorials on the internet mention the C: drive as the container for the BCD file – the trouble was that the container was the hidden ESP partition, which needs a drive letter assigned using diskpart such as Z:

IMG-20141122-WA0003

ESP Partition

The solution explaining the last step was found here:

http://www.qliktips.com/2012/11/fix-windows-8-boot-issue.html

However, there’s a small typo there:

BCDBoot c:\Windows /s z: /f: UEFI

should read:

BCDBoot c:\Windows /s z: /f UEFI

The boot type (in BIOS) needs to be switched back to UEFI afterwards and the boot order restored (just to avoid booting UEFI USB Sticks by mistakes).

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