How to Fix Windows 11 UEFI Boot Problems Can’t Boot
If Windows 11 cannot boot due to UEFI boot loader damage, etc., launch the recovery environment (recovery function) from the installation media or recovery drive, and use two methods: “Automatic Repair” or “Command Prompt”. This page introduces two ways to fix UEFI bootloader in Windows 11.
Overview of UEFI Boot Repair for Windows 11
- If there is a problem with the UEFI bootloader, the boot screen of Windows 11 will not be displayed, and an error such as a blue screen will be displayed.
If you can see the boot screen but it doesn’t boot, there may be other causes, such as system corruption. In this case, restore the system files with “Command Prompt” in ” Start the recovery environment and prepare for restoration ” below .
- In the past, “MBR” booting by BIOS was often used, but with Windows 11, “UEFI” booting is required, so the repair method is a little difficult.
- Windows 11 UEFI bootloader repair requires installation media and recovery drive. If you don’t have the media, create it on another PC and then do the repair work.
- To repair the UEFI bootloader, start the “recovery environment” with the media, go to “troubleshooting” → “advanced options”, and perform automatic repair with “startup repair”.
- If “Startup Repair” fails to repair UEFI boot, use “Command Prompt” to repair by rebuilding the UEFI BCD boot record.
UEFI boot repair boots to recovery environment with media
The method of booting the installation media or recovery drive to boot the recovery environment differs depending on the manufacturer and model. The basic operation is to turn on the power of the PC and immediately press “Delete”, “F2”, “F12”, “F9”, “F8”, etc. You can change the boot order on the BIOS (UEFI) screen, or select the boot media directly by operating the keyboard depending on the model. Please check the manual for details.
Prepare for repair by booting the recovery environment with the installation media
Here’s how to create Windows 11 installation media.
Create Windows 11 installation media1. Boot your computer with the installation media.
2. Start the installation media, and after a while, the initial setting screen such as language will be displayed.
3. Select your keyboard type and language and click Next.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. When prompted to choose an option, click Troubleshoot.
This completes the groundwork for repairing UEFI boot from installation media. Then go to ” Repair UEFI boot errors automatically ” or ” Repair UEFI boot errors with bcdboot command “.
Prepare for repair by booting into the recovery environment with the recovery drive
Here’s how to create a recovery drive for Windows 11.
How to create a Windows 11 recovery drive1. Boot the computer with the USB memory of the recovery drive.
2. After the recovery drive boots, select your keyboard layout.
3. When you are presented with a choice of options, click Troubleshoot.
Then go to ” Repair UEFI boot errors automatically ” or ” Repair UEFI boot errors with bcdboot command “.
Automatically repair UEFI boot errors in Windows 11
“Startup” is a function that mainly detects problems related to Windows startup and automatically repairs any problems that are detected.
Repair UEFI bootloader with Startup Repair
1. Click Startup Repair on the Advanced Options screen.
2. Click “Windows 11” on the Startup Repair screen to run it.
3. Wait until “Diagnosing your PC” is displayed.
Complete Startup Repair
- After diagnosing the PC, if Windows 11 starts , “UEFI boot” will be repaired.
- After “Diagnosing your PC”, when the ” Startup Repair ” screen appears, click “Advanced Options”, go to “Troubleshoot”, and try to run “Startup Repair” again.
If Windows 11 does not start even after executing “Startup Repair” several times, repair “UEFI boot” in the next section ” Repair UEFI boot error with bcdboot command “.
Automatically repair UEFI boot errors in Windows 11
Start a command prompt and rebuild and repair the UEFI bootloader with commands.
Start recovery environment command prompt
Click Command Prompt on the Advanced Options screen to open Command Prompt.
Repair UEFI bootloader with command
1. Select the disk where Windows 11 is installed
1-1. Type diskpart and press Enter.
1-2. Type ” list disk ” and press “Enter”.
1-3. Select the disk where Windows is installed (usually “0”) by typing “select disk 0” and pressing “Enter”.
Type select disk 0 and press Enter.
2. Select the system (EFI) partition and set the drive letter
2-1. Type ” list partition ” and press “Enter”. 2-2. Select the partition labeled “System”.
Here the “system” Partition is ” 1 “, so type ” select partition 1 ” and press “Enter”.
2-3. Assign a drive letter for “UEFI boot” rebuild. Type assign letter=s and press Enter. [s] is a dry letter
2-4. Check if the system partition has the dry letter “s”. Type list vol and press Enter.
‘ list vol ‘ is different from the list of partitions ‘ list partition ‘. Check the size against it (100 MB here).2-5.Here , check the drive letter where Windows 11 is installed, which is required in the next section, “Rebuilding the boot record”.
The drive on which Windows 11 is installed is “C”, but check the disk drive capacity just in case.2-6. Type exit and press Enter to exit diskpart .
3. Rebuild UEFI BCD boot record and verify boot
Here is an example of using the bcdboot command to rebuild the BCD (UEFI boot) file on the drive letter ” C ” where Windows 11 is installed . 3-1. Type ” bcdboot C :\Windows /ss: ” and press the “Enter” key.
If ” Boot file created successfully ” is displayed, rebuilding the boot record is complete.If you get an error or nothing at all, please check if Windows 11 is installed with the correct dry letter and the string you entered is correct.3-2. Since you are booting into the recovery environment (WinPE), type ” wpeutil shutdownvol ” and press “Enter” to shutdown.
3-2. After the shutdown is complete, press the power button to confirm Windows 11 starts.
If Windows 11 still does not boot due to problems with the UEFI boot loader, try running the item ” Automatic repair of UEFI boot errors ” several times. If it still doesn’t start, please refer to the next section ” Cannot repair UEFI bootloader “.
If rebuilding the UEFI BCD boot record still does not boot, you can also import the BCD boot file to recreate it. Even if there is no problem with the input string of the command and an error occurs, try to run it to the end and check if Windows 11 starts.First, set the drive letter in the above item ” Repair UEFI boot error with bcdboot command ” and proceed to “2-6” in “Exit desikpart”.
- Type s : and press Enter. Go to system partition
- Type bcdboot c:\windows /l en-US r: /f ALL and press Enter.
- Type bcdedit /createstore s:\boot\bcd.backup and press Enter.
- Type bcdedit /store s:\boot\bcd.backup /create {bootmgr} /d “BOOTMGR” and press Enter.
- Type bcdedit /import s:\boot\bcd.backup and press Enter.
- Type bootrec /rebuildbcd and press Enter.
- Type wpeutil shutdownvol and press Enter to shutdown.
- After the shutdown is complete, press the power button to confirm Windows 11 starts.