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I'm trying to add a mirror of the C:\ volume in Windows, but Disk Management gives an error:

Disk Management screenshot

Disk Management

The boot configuration data of the system could not be updated.
Use bcdedit.exe to update it manually. Note that bcdedit.exe is not
available on Windows 2003 Server. Edit boot.ini or use
bootcfg.exe instead.

OK

Obviously we're not going to use bcdedit.exe to update boot configuration data - because nobody knows how (and also because that's not my question).

How do i make Windows Disk Management not fail to do what it needs to do?

Microsoft Windows [Version 10.0.18362.449]

Bonus Reading

I like the particularly unhelpful answer:

You install is corrupt, suggest doing a clean install.
Or it is a bug, wait for microsoft fix it
then do a clean install.
Also do a clean install every 6 months.
Also switch to Linux.

Edit: The question obviously isn't about how to create a mirror. The mirror is created just fine (you can see it in the screenshot). Both drives in the mirror pair are Dynamic Disks, BTW.

This question is:

  • what causes Disk Management to be unable to update the boot configuration data (on a fresh install of Windows 10 Professional)
  • what can i do to make sure that Disk Management is able to update the boot configuration data

Because we all know that if the 1st disk fails, and someone tries to boot off the mirror disk, the boot sequence will fail. Using mirroring to mirror a boot disk has worked in Windows 1000, Windows XP, Windows Vista, Windows 7, Windows 8, Windows 8.1, and Windows 10 pre-this version.

How do i fix it?

GChuf
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Ian Boyd
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  • If you are not willing to modified your boot configuration data with the tool provided, what tool are you going to use, because the only way to implement what you want is to modified the boot configuration data. – Ramhound Nov 06 '19 at 18:30
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    @Ramhound I'm asking how to fix *this* error. I'm not asking how to solve an BSOD with [`INACCESSIBLE_BOOT_DEVICE`](https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-hardware/drivers/debugger/bug-check-0x7b--inaccessible-boot-device); because i know better than to trust this mirror generated by Windows 10. If i did have that question, i would ask it in another question. – Ian Boyd Nov 06 '19 at 19:20
  • @Ian Boyd Please also see https://superuser.com/questions/336718/im-trying-to-mirror-drives-of-the-same-model-but-one-appears-to-be-slightly-la?rq=1 which has a command line solution using DISKPART https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/windows-server/administration/windows-commands/diskpart https://helpdeskgeek.com/how-to/diskpart-windows-how-to-use/ – K7AAY Nov 07 '19 at 00:14
  • @K7aay Both disks are dynamic. (They **have** to be; otherwise it wouldn't have been possible to create the mirror; you know that!) – Ian Boyd Nov 07 '19 at 13:24
  • @K7AAY I don't need to use `diskpart`; as i'm not experiencing any problem creating the mirror. – Ian Boyd Nov 07 '19 at 20:32
  • Ian - I have notes from when I setup something very similar on an Windows server and confirmed it worked as expected afterwards. I have notes at the bottom of my saved document that say "*if you cannot simply go into Disk Management and right click to add mirror*" to then, "*go to `diskpart`, select that disk and run ``clean``, go back into Disk Management and add the mirror again*". If that helps and you are interested, I can post my full notes in a clean fashion with a thorough detailed answer but only if you tell me so. Let me know if that quick snippet helps you resolve though. – Vomit IT - Chunky Mess Style Nov 10 '19 at 16:43
  • @IanBoyd have you been able to solve the problem? I can confirm than none of the approaches suggested in the comments work (diskpart fails too with the same error "DiskPart failed to update the boot configuration data. Use bcdedit.exe to update it manually."). – Bob Jul 12 '20 at 16:28
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    According to the last link on your post, you should also manually duplicate the System Reserved partition using diskpart and manual copy. As you have not done this part, it's possible that this is the cause of the problem with bcdedit. – harrymc Jul 14 '20 at 08:16

1 Answers1

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According to the last link in your post, you should also manually duplicate the System Reserved partition using diskpart and manual copy. As you have not done this part, it's possible that this is the cause of the problem with bcdedit.

For UEFI/GPT Based Systems the procedure is as follows:

Step 1 : Get type and partition size

Enter these commands in diskpart:

select disk 0
list partition

The result might be similar to:

enter image description here

Step 2 : Create partition and assign drive letters

After deleting all partition on the target disk, use the following commands in diskpart to create the System and Reserved partition(s) and assign a drive letter to the EFI partition, on the secondary disk (DISK 1):

select disk 1
create partition efi size=99      (use your size)
format fs=fat32 quick
assign letter=t
create partition msr size=16      (use your size)

select disk 0
select partition 2
assign letter=s
exit

Step 3 : Copy the contents

Copy the contents of the primary EFI System partition of Disk 0, to the primary EFI System partition on Disk 1 by typing the following command in command prompt:

robocopy.exe s:\ t:\ * /e /copyall /dcopy:t /xf BCD.* /xd "System Volume Information"

The above is just a subset of the information in the article. A good reading of it is advised.

The two disks need to look identical. From the article:

enter image description here

harrymc
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  • The duplication is not the problem, according to official Microsoft documentation the copying is done afterwards. Besides, I tested it in DiskPart afterwards and it failed again. I can reproduce the error: DiskPart failed to update the boot configuration data. Use bcdedit.exe to update it manually. It should work but it doesn't. https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/troubleshoot/windows-server/backup-and-storage/set-up-dynamic-boot-partition-mirroring – Miron Tewfik Apr 23 '21 at 22:20