While fixing the Boot Configuration Data (BCD) on your computer you may encounter “Access is denied” message in command prompt window. If you are seeing this message you won’t be able to fix the boot related issue unless you take care of the problem first. To do so, follow these simple steps on your computer-
Fix- 1 Recreate EFI structure and reconfigure the boot files-
Recreating the EFI structure will help you to solve this issue.
1. At first, turn off your computer.
2. After that, switch ON your machine.
3. Then, when your system starts up, as soon as you have seen the manufacturer’s logo, press-hold the power button again to force the shutdown of your system.
4. Continue these steps 2-3 more times and it will automatically reach the startup repair screen.
When your computer boots up, you will be in Automatic Repair mode. Click on the “Advanced options“.
5. In the Choose an option window, click on “Troubleshoot“.
6. In Troubleshooting window, click on “Advanced options“.
7. In Advanced options window, click on “Command Prompt“.
8. In Command Prompt window, copy-paste these two commands one-by-one and hit Enter to execute both of the commands sequentially on your computer.
diskpart list disk
9.Again copy-paste and modify these commands in Command Prompt window one-by-one and hit Enter after each of them.
select disk your disk no
list vol
[
NOTE– Replace the “<your disk no.>” with the number of HDD drive on which the Windows is installed.
For this computer, it is “Disk 0“. So the command will be like this-
select disk 0
]
10. Again copy-paste this command in Command Prompt and then hit Enter to select the System reserved volume.
select vol <volume no.>
[NOTE– Replace the “<volume no.>” which is declared to have 100 MB storage. This partition contains the EFI (Extensible Firmware Interface) and usually formatted in FAT32 format.
Example- For us, it is ‘Volume 5 which is the FAT32 partition, and its size is limited to 100 MB. So the command will be –
select vol 5
11. Now, you have to assign a new drive letter to the partition. Copy-paste this command in Command Prompt window and hit Enter to do so.
assign letter=V:
Upon completion, you will see this message – ‘diskpart successfully assigned the drive letter’.
12. In order to exit the diskpart, type this command and press Enter.
exit
13. Now, type the command
V:
14. After that run the command given below.
bcdboot C:\windows /s V: /f UEFI
Close Command Prompt window.
15. Coming back to Troubleshooting window, click on “Continue” to normally boot into Windows 10.
Your problem will be fixed.
Sambit is a Mechanical Engineer By qualification who loves to write about Windows 10 and solutions to weirdest possible problems.
James A says
Hi Sambit,
Disabling fastboot in Windows 10 20H2 corrupted my BCD and this fixed it. Really saved my bacon, so thank you very much for posting this.
Cheers!
James
Max says
I spent 3 days to find how to fix loop restart after the last update. And was ready to reinstall it, but your post saved me from it! Thanks a lot!!!
Ronald says
You saved my day, thanks!!
IT GUY says
I love you.
Jim says
I think you want to select the EFI volume, not the Windows volume:
select volume 6
Ulli says
doing a “cd /d V:” before “md \efi\microsoft\boot\” actually created such a directory on V: drive. But still “access denied” error on “bootrec /fixboot” aferwards…
any ideas?
Tommy says
Yeah, same as everyone else. Works fine until the second step of part 13 then it says, the system cannot find the path specified. Would love to know what to do about that.
Thanks,
Pat says
I would so like to know how to do the Windows +I to fix the boot problem when the computer won’t boot. How do you get to it? I can’t find a screen on the Recovery system from which it will work.
ARMAN MALLARI says
DOES MY FILES WILL BE AFFECTED IF I DO THIS METHOD?
THANK YOU VERY MUCH
jp2code says
I get to step #14, but still see the same “Access is denied” message after entering “bootrec /fixboot”
All this started after Windows had to reboot because of updates.
Maybe it’s time to give Linux another try.
Mamad says
This is the article 100000 with the same error “access is denied” =| =E
Jeremy says
In Step #13.
When I try to type in cd /d V:\efi\microsoft\boot\
I get “The system cannot find the path specified”
And none of the remaining commands work. bootrec /fixboot still gives the “access is denied” error. Please help.