Windows Boot Manager error, winload.exe

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dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Windows Boot Manager error, winload.exe

Hello,

MacPro 3,1

Windows 7 & 10.9.5

Mac OS and Windows partition on same disk

I've been reading threads here on the apple board and elsewhere on the net. Tried the easier fixes with no luck. (No USB devices on boot, zapping Pram, CommandS fsck operations, etc)

I've had no hardware or mac os updates in a very long time. Bootcamp was working fine for years, then suddenly not working.

I'm wondering if I do have some corruption going on..

My Windows 7 (64), is a Vista upgrade

DiskUtil list

Diskutil cs list

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Many thanks for any help!

Andre

Posted on Jun 25, 2021 8:15 PM

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Answer 1

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 29, 2021 3:56 PM in response to dreko71

Some of the outputs are a bit confusing.

For example, you original Bootcamp disk was

where Windows starts at sector 411648.

Now, when you posted the GPT, I see

These are not the same disks. This is a regular Apple disk, but the GPT indices are are not in order.

We may need to get the output of the following commands

diskutil list

sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk0

sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk1

sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk2

sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk3

before we make any further changes.

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Answer 2

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 26, 2021 12:26 PM in response to Loner T

Hey LonerT

Do you think the fact that I'm using a PCIe SSD OWC excelsior card as the main boot drive (1TB into 2 partitions, Windows7/OSX)

using the Apricorn Velocity Solo X2 BIOS

Might have something to do with my issues?

I made a USB bootable drive with NeoSmart's Easy Recovery Essential, but the USB drive is not recognized when holding down the option key on boot

I also made a bootable CDRom disk with Easy Recovery, yet I think my CDRom drive is not working/dead...

Any thoughts?

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Answer 3

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 27, 2021 8:16 AM in response to Loner T

Ok, I will try that and reply back...

I took apart the DVD Rom drive, greased up the rails, cleaned out the dust, etc...

it's working and powers up fine... but there seems to be something going on, where I cannot get it to recognize any disks (Mac OSX) or boot from any boot able CD/DVD (option key)

I pulled all the drives out

I swapped video cards

It seems I have to figure out how to get the DVD drive to function properly, before I can get to the necessary next steps.

(On another note, I just used Windows 10 SandBox feature to do the task/work I needed to get done with BootCamp. )

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Answer 4

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 27, 2021 1:46 PM in response to Loner T

I replaced the IDE DVD drive, booted off the recommended NeoSmart recovery tool

Read their website, no mention of compatibility with bootcamp...

gave it a start, it booted

ran the easy repair

it completed

Seems like it tampered with my main Mac OSX drive

My Mac OSX drive is now wiped with a EFI designation , booted into TechTool edisk, see that the drive has no files... TechTool doesn't offer any recovery tools on that drive

I guess I can see if I can boot with a Mac OSX disk, see if there's any recovery tools

looks like I lost all the data on the Apricorn drive (main mac osx)

Ugh

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Answer 5

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 27, 2021 4:06 PM in response to dreko71

As expected. Your GPT has been corrupted. We can try to correct this.

Can you install GPT Fdisk (https://sourceforge.net/projects/gptfdisk/) and post the output of

sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk0

sudo gdisk -l /dev/disk1

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Answer 6

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 27, 2021 5:06 PM in response to Loner T

Currently I'm running off a TechTool Pro eDisk (emergency partition)

I'm going to install GPT fdisk on a windows 10 recovery USB bootable

I'll give that a shot

Although I just mounted the USB drive (within the techtool pro environment)

I see it mounted to the desktop

Do you think I can run the GPT fdisk off that USB drive , from within the techtool environment (I can launch Terminal) it appears from the GPT fdisk sourceforge site, it can run in Linux, Mac, Windows... so I think I can probably run it in Terminal (from the TechTool eDisk)

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Answer 7

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 28, 2021 10:07 AM in response to Loner T

Yes I've installed it on the USB disk, I've been trying to read up on the program.

Do you know what commands in Terminal I should be typing to get it to possibly fix the drives?

many thanks for your help on this

Also, since I purchased NeoSmart software and now have that, is there any tools within that program that might undo what it has done?

thanks

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Answer 8

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 28, 2021 3:38 PM in response to dreko71

When you download GPT Fdisk from macOS you will get a binary, which is

file /usr/local/bin/gdisk 
/usr/local/bin/gdisk: Mach-O 64-bit executable x86_64

If you do the same on a Windows PC (or Bootcamp MAC), you will get an executable which is

gdisk64.exe 0:
GPT fdisk (gdisk) version 1.0.8

Partition table scan:
  MBR: protective
  BSD: not present
  APM: not present
  GPT: present

Found valid GPT with protective MBR; using GPT.

Command (? for help): p
Disk 0:: 488552530 sectors, 1.8 TiB
Sector size (logical): 4096 bytes
Disk identifier (GUID): 95315930-1791-4E79-9813-E7A9050E157C
Partition table holds up to 128 entries
Main partition table begins at sector 2 and ends at sector 5
First usable sector is 6, last usable sector is 488552524
Partitions will be aligned on 2-sector boundaries
Total free space is 559 sectors (2.2 MiB)

Number  Start (sector)    End (sector)  Size       Code  Name
   1               6           76805   300.0 MiB   EF00  EFI System Partition
   2           76806       245438207   936.0 GiB   AF0A
   3       245438208       488417565   926.9 GiB   0700
   4       488417792       488552191   525.0 MiB   2700

Command (? for help):

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Answer 9

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 28, 2021 4:31 PM in response to dreko71

Should I reboot at this point, and try both OS options? Mac OSX and Windows (bootcamp)

Thanks again for helping me with all of this, invaluable, I wouldn't have known how to proceed with all of this...

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Answer 10

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 28, 2021 6:11 PM in response to dreko71

The command we used does not repair the GPT. To repair it, we need to run GPT FDisk in interactive menu. See https://www.rodsbooks.com/gdisk/gdisk.html for reference. A reboot can re-order disks, so be careful.

You need to run (do not type text like this). Let us try to repair disk0 (your macOS disk). Be careful, in each menu, the one-character command can mean different types of requests.

sudo gdisk /dev/disk0

2 (Choose 2, if prompted)

p (print)

x (Experts menu)

n (New Protective MBR)

o (print Protective MBR)

p (print GPT)

w (write the updated GPT)

y (confirm write)

q (quit, if necessary)

Do not reboot. Now post the output of

diskutil list

before we go further.

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Answer 11

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 29, 2021 6:14 AM in response to dreko71

dreko71 wrote:

Ok, understood. When you say 'run' you mean execute

Yes.

And do not type the words within the parenthesis.

Just the single character command

Correct.

I'm assuming start with disk0 first, not disk1

Yes.

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Answer 12

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 29, 2021 10:53 AM in response to Loner T

Ok, I cannot boot into boot camp drive

When holding the option key during startup, there's no longer a Bootcamp drive/OS

However, when I boot back into Mac OSx, it mounts right on the desktop and I see all the files/directories.

I did run the following steps on the bootcamp drive:

sudo gdisk /dev/disk1

2 (Choose 2, if prompted)

p (print)

x (Experts menu)

n (New Protective MBR)

o (print Protective MBR)

p (print GPT)

w (write the updated GPT)

y (confirm write)

q (quit, if necessary)

I think I just realized, I haven't used it on disk2

I think that is the bootcamp drive, yes?

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Answer 13

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 29, 2021 11:43 AM in response to dreko71

Your disk0 and disk2 appear to be correct here. The Microsoft Reserved is unnecessary, but should not hurt anything if left as is. For you to see the Windows as bootable, we need to create a hybrid MBR on disk2. Too check what it has now, post the output of

sudo fdisk /dev/disk2

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Answer 14

Loner T

Level 9

59,477 points

Jun 29, 2021 6:55 PM in response to dreko71

Much better. We need to correct disk1. Do not reboot yet, otherwise the disk order will change.

For current disk1 (do not type text like this), we will delete the current GPT, and rebuild the same entries in a different order. Check the Start/End values for any errors, before you execute the steps.

sudo gdisk /dev/disk1

m (main menu)

o (remove existing GPT/PMBR)

x (experts menu)

l ( this is lowercase L, set alignment to...)

1 (this is digit 1, 1 sector)

m (main menu)

n (New)

1 (GPT 1)

40 (Start)

409639 (End)

EF00 (EFI)

n (new)

2 (GPT 2)

409640 (Start)

410663 (End)

0C01 (EasyRE)

n (new)

3 (GPT 3)

411648 (Start)

976773119 (End)

0700 (NTFS)

p (print)

w (write)

y (confirm write)

q (quit, if necessary)

Now reboot, and check

diskutil list

and verify the order of partitions is EFI, EasyRE, NTFS on your Bootcamp disk. Once you confirm, we can go further.

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Answer 15

dreko71 Author

Level 1

9 points

Jun 30, 2021 1:14 PM in response to Loner T

Ok, hmmm this next step seems a bit daunting.. hopefully there will be no errors between the Start and End values.

I'm wondering if I should just leave everything where it's at... the Mac OSX is back (and the most important part of this 3,1 computer)

The Bootcamp Windows 7 OS functionality, seems like taking a great risk to restore. Being somewhat risk averse, I'm wondering if I should just let sleeping dogs lie...

The long string of commands in repairing the GPT, trying to resurrect BootCamp... do you feel we are taking great risks to the whole system? If so, maybe I'll just leave everything as is... and move on...

thoughts??

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Windows Boot Manager error, winload.exe

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