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So.. I need to edit the BCD for a partition on my local hard disk using a program called EasyBCD. This program needs the partition to be mounted (have a drive letter) so it can access \Boot\BCD, but when I enter the Disk Management program, the partition has no available actions. The only thing on the right-click menu is a help link with no relevant information.

Is there any program that can assign the letter for me or a tweak to enable changing drive letter for that partition?

Here is the information about the partition displayed in Disk Management:

  • Volume: [blank]
  • Layout: Simple
  • Type: Basic
  • File System: [blank]
  • Status: Heathy(EISA Configuration)
  • Capacity: 1.46GB
  • Free Space: 1.46GB
  • Fault Tolerance: No

I know for a fact that is the first primary partition, the filesystem is NTFS, and the label is TOSHIBA SYSTEM VOLUME.

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  • In the Disk Manager what are you right-clicking on? Are you right-clicking the volume area, or the "Disk #" panel (etc.)? Can you access the partition from within Windows itself? Jul 15, 2012 at 20:30
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    You can use Disk Management to assign a drive letter, although it's rather odd that EasyBCD requires one. Jul 15, 2012 at 20:37
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    That 1.46GB partition is too large for being the boot partition. This looks more like the Toshiba recovery partition. This is not the partition you are looking for.
    – Robert
    Jul 16, 2012 at 11:45

2 Answers 2

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A NTFS, FAT or FAT32 partition can always be mapped to a drive letter. It is even done automatically by Windows if the partition is not "hidden".

For unhiding a partition you can use diskpart.exe for example or any Partition Tool/Editor. The difference is in partition type: "clear" NTFS, type is 07(hex) - "hidden" NTFS, type is 17(hex).

You can also try Visual BCD Editor for changing BCD contents.

The tool can edit every single item present in BCD not just a few elements. Drive and path of an application/loader can be changed/edited completely (e.g. a partition device can be changed to locateEx device(vhd) - no other tool offers such capabilities).

A BCD can be dropped on the VBCDE shortcut icon to open any BCD store so the problem is access of Windows Explorer to BCD in question.

Note:

The system BCD can be inacessible for Windows Explorer (reside on a hidden partition) but Windows makes it accesible by copying its contents to system registry (HKLM\BCD00000000).

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  • Thanks so much. Unhiding the partition seemed to have solved it. Never thought to check if it was hidden. Sorry for getting back to this question, I thought I had email notifications turned on. :)
    – Wolfizen
    Aug 4, 2012 at 2:28
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Unhiding the Partition

Step 1 Select "Run" from the Start Menu.

Step 2 Type "cmd" in the field and click "OK." This will start the command line prompt.

Step 3 Type "diskpart" and press the "Enter" key to start the Diskpart command line utility.

Step 4 Type "select disk X," replacing the "X" with the number of the drive that has the hidden partition. Press the "Enter" key. The program should say "Disk X is now the selected disk."

Step 5 Type "select partition X," again replacing the "X" with the partition number for the hidden partition. After you press the "Enter" key, the program should indicate that it selected your partition.

Step 6 Make sure that you selected the right partition by typing "detail partition" and then pressing the "Enter" key. Diskpart will print out some data, including the partition number, type, hidden status and active status. If it says "Hidden: Yes," you are working with the right partition.

Step 7 Note the partition type. It will be a two character code.

Step 8 Enter "set type=07" if the hidden partition is an NTFS partition or "set type=0b" if it is a FAT32 partition, then press the "Enter" key. After doing this, type "Assign" then press "Enter".

Step 9 Type "exit" to close Diskpart, then click the close box to shut down the command prompt.

after http://smallbusiness.chron.com/unhide-partition-xp-45582.html

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