Boot Camp disappeared after installing El Capitan

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Boot Camp disappeared after installing El Capitan

Hi, I have a lot of important files on my windows 8.1 Boot Camp partition and they were not backed up recently. I upgraded from Yosemite to el capitan OS X 10.10 this afternoon and the screen froze on reboot and then booted into windows with an error. After I rebooted it back into OS X it continued with the install however the Boot Camp partition is not visible from the disk utility although you can see it and select it upon pressing on the Option key during startup. If the windows partition is selected a recovery error is shown for windows, even with the usb key inserted.

Macbook Pro mid-2014 1TB SSD Approximately 700G OS X and 300G Windows 8.1

Here are my results from the terminal prompt tests mentioned in earlier threads.

Any help is appreciated, working on figuring out how to run test disk from the command prompt. New to macs.

Thanks!

Posted on Oct 19, 2015 8:55 PM

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Answer 1

Loner T

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Oct 20, 2015 3:43 AM in response to OptionJ

You have a Windows Recovery. Is there a pending Windows Recovery that you need to complete?

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Answer 2

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 5:05 AM in response to Loner T

Not that I am aware of.

Windows worked flawlessly several minutes before switching to OS X and updating to el capitan.

Procedure for Windows after update of OS X:

Power ..... Option ..... Bitlocker ... PW ... Preparing Automatic Repair ... Recovery, Your PC needs to be repaired. An unexpected error has occurred. Error Code: 0xc000000e You'll need to use the recovery tools that came with your media.

The PW appears to work and then it detects an error. Also bootcamp doesn't show up in the disk utility after the update to OS X.

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Answer 3

Loner T

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Oct 20, 2015 5:17 AM in response to OptionJ

The error code indicates BCD corruption. You have an EFI Partition on your Mac. The EFI partition is also used by Windows to host it's own boot manager when Windows is installed using EFI (a very poorly documented and implemented solution). Let us try to mount it and see what is in it.

The following commands are typed in OS X Terminal. Since you have El Capitan, if the command fails, the System Integrity Protection may need to be disabled.

sudo mkdir -p /Volumes/EFI

sudo mount -t msdos /dev/disk0s1 /Volumes/EFI

cd /Volumes/EFI

ls -l /Volumes/EFI

Please see Can't resize Macintosh HD partition as a reference.

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Answer 4

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 5:48 AM in response to Loner T

Here is the output

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Answer 5

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 7:32 AM in response to Loner T

Here is a better snapshot of the EFI

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Answer 6

Loner T

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Oct 20, 2015 7:56 AM in response to OptionJ

Can you post the directory listing from

ls -l /Volumes/EFI/EFI/Microsoft/Boot

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Answer 7

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 7:59 AM in response to Loner T

Here it is

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Answer 8

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 8:16 AM in response to OptionJ

So it looks like the BCD file was changed during the OS X upgrade?

I have the windows installer usb from the original windows 8.1 install that I made with boot camp assistant and it has a BCD file in the BOOT directory. Any way that is the correct file that could fix this issue?

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Answer 9

Loner T

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Oct 20, 2015 9:12 AM in response to OptionJ

Do not use the BCD file from the USB. It is a generic file. Use Bootrec.exe and /rebuildBCD as mentioned in https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/kb/927392 . You will need to boot from the Windows Installer, run Repair, and get to command prompt to rebuild it. If you have TM backup, check what is in the EFI directory.

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Answer 10

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 2:29 PM in response to Loner T

Here is a snapshot of the Time Capsule directory for the MacBook Pro. Any idea where the EFI folder would be? I've looked through most of them and haven't found it. Or is it hidden? Thanks.

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Answer 11

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 3:17 PM in response to Loner T

When I try to boot into the windows installer for 8.1 it doesn't give me an option to repair, just reinstall windows 8.1 and after inputting the OS key it asks me to pick a partition with a warning message.

I have tried the Windows gray folder, the windows yellow folder (on USB install) and the EFI yellow folder (on USB install). None appear to allow repairing the installation.

Any other ideas on how to accomplish it? Perhaps there is a different folder on the USB that has the file I need to boot from?

I should clarify, when pressing option after power up with the USB, I have 4 choices. Macintosh HD Grey), Windows (grey), Windows (yellow), EFI (yellow). When pressing option and powering up without the USB I only hove the first 2 choices. And now bit locker is not asking me for the password anymore upon startup. This is new as the password option was working this morning.

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Answer 12

Loner T

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Oct 20, 2015 4:19 PM in response to OptionJ

There are complications with Bitlocker on a Mac. The drive may get locked after failed attempts at Repair.

Please see https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee424308(v=ws.10).aspx . Can you remove bit locker encryption temporarily - https://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee424315(v=ws.10).aspx? It has information in BCD.

When the Windows Installer starts, do you see a Repair option in the bottom left corner?

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Answer 13

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 7:32 PM in response to Loner T

Ok, the bitlocker is actually working. If you have the usb inserted then it doesn't require a password as it pulls it from the Bitlocker text file on the USB.

Unfortunately, when I try any of the 3 windows options for startup, none offer a repair option.

Choice 1 is the Microsoft partition which uses bitlocker and upon hitting the escape key will load the boot manager, the only choices in this are start windows 8.1 (which fails within a second of starting automatic windows recovery) or run windows memory diagnostics.

Choice 2 is from the USB (WININSTALL See Pic Above) and loads windows 8.1 installer that was prepared from bootcamp assistant. No choices here but to enter the windows license key after selecting language, keyboard, etc. Eventually you get to the partition selection along with a warning.

Choice 3 is from the USB (WININSTALL See Pic Above) called EFI boot, it is the same as choice 2 except its half the size (fonts etc.)

Spent several hours trying slightly different scenarios to get a windows recovery to load so I could try and repair it but no luck so far with that or getting a command prompt.

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Answer 14

Loner T

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Oct 20, 2015 7:50 PM in response to OptionJ

If you recall we were looking at the Microsoft directory under EFI. Your installation cannot be repaired using the Windows icon. You need to use the EFI Boot, because your installation is EFI. Since it is a retail version, you are being prompted for the Product key. Please try the EFI Boot, and check if you can Repair.

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Answer 15

OptionJ Author

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Oct 20, 2015 8:36 PM in response to Loner T

Ok here is what happens when I try the EFI Boot:

Windows 8 screen (4 blue squares)

Select Language, Time and Keyboard

Enter Product Key

Select Windows 8.1 operating System

Accept Microsoft Software Agreement

Asks "Where do you want to install Windows?"

Drive 0 Partition 1 200M

Drive 0 Partition 2 651.3M

Drive 0 Partition 3 620M

Drive 0 Partition 4 279.4M

Drive 0 Unallocated 299M

Gives error message for each stating "Windows can't be installed on any of the drives" Cannot go any further.

No options for system repair.

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