Error 0xc0000034 - jcgriff2

jcgriff2

jcgriff2

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I have not been online recently, as my laptop broke. Upon waking it from sleep, all I get is a blue colored screen (not sure if a BSOD or not) saying:

Rich (BB code): 
Error = 0xc0000034

File: c:\BCD

Then the screen with that information on it just sits there as-is.

The OS is an OEM version of Windows 8.1 x64 and has a Recovery partition. I can get a full retail version version of Windows 8.1 x64, but it will not allow me to repair this OEM version.

In my opinion, it is likely that the hard drive is bad (some bad sectors), although I did boot into Recovery and checked many directories and files via command prompt (CMD) and had no problems maneuvering around. There are files on the two hard drive partitions that I would like to copy out (probably using CMD/ batch file; xcopy command) to a USB drive.

I do have a back-up 7 TB USB drive that other laptops I plug it in to give off an error message "...a hard drive that was just plugged in is malfunctioning...". I just cannot seem to win here at all!

There are other reasons for this error that I have found - related to the boot configuration and several sites suggest CMD commands too fix the system.

- Google Search - 0xc34 - 0xc0000034 - Google Search
- 0xc0000034 – Fix for Windows Vista, 7, 8, 10 (neosmart.net)
- How to Fix Error Code: 0xc0000034 - MajorGeeks
- 4 Solutions to Fix Windows 10 Error Code 0xc0000034 (wondershare.com)

Regardless, ideally, I would like to copy files off of the two HDD partitions onto a USB drive (about 700 GB total); install a new 500 GB SSD; Install Full Retail version of Windows 10 x64 Professional. I have thoroughly enjoyed Windows 8.1 x64, but it is time to move up to Windows 10.

Thanks. . .

John


@Wrench97 - Windows 10 is finally on the horizon, Bruce!








`
 
Have you tried booting into your recovery partition (should contain a copy of Win RE) and then entering the following command:

Code: 
bootrec /rebuildBCD
 
These are some additional options:

Test the drive using a Sea Tools bootable flash drive: long generic testing
SeaTools for DOS - Hard Drive Diagnostic

If the drive fails consider backing up files using:
a) Ubuntu / Linux
b) a Windows 10 iso
c) placing the drive into an empty bay of another computer
d) HD enclosure

If the drive passes consider repairing as needed:
a) boot sector
b) drive file system
c) operating system
d) registry

Repairing Windows 8.1 allows an free upgrade to Windows 10.
 
I found another solution (if booting with a repair media and the automatic repair doesn't work).
These steps should be valid if you installed Windows 8/8.1 in a UEFI system.
They could not be valid/effettive if you installed Windows using the Legacy mode.
  • Open a command prompt (admin) (when you're using the repair media)
  • diskpart
  • select disk x
    (where x is your disk... Usually, it's 0: select disk 0)
  • list partition
  • select the system partition (usually, from 100MB to 500MB)
    select partition x
    (where x is your system partition)
  • detail partition
    To ensure it's the UEFI/EFI/ESP partition (fs=FAT32). I get:
    Read More:
  • assign letter=T
    (if you don't have volumes with a T letter assigned to them; otherwise, use another letter)
  • exit
  • cd /d T:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
    (where T is the partition letter chosen before)
  • ren BCD corruptBCD.bak
  • bootrec /fixboot
  • bcdboot c:\windows /s T: /f:UEFI
    (where T is the partition letter chosen before)
  • shutdown /r /t 0
 
Last edited:
Well @jcgriff2 , John, I wish I could give you as solid advice/help like the rest of these team members have. But I am just sorry to hear of this seriousness of losing your system.
Good luck moving forward and thank you for sharing your dilemma. I do believe you'll enjoy, like Windows 10 after all done and said. I've always struggled letting go of the old and moving to the new. But you are a genius with computers John...😊
 
xilolee said:
Most solutions I found were:
- system restore
- repair (with a system recovery media: USB or CD)
- refresh
- reset
- reinstall
Click to expand...
1st thing I tried was RSTRUI; then repair - no go on either. The 1 TB HDD is partitioned into 2 "drives". Vital files are on the non-boot drive and I did not want to take a chance that refresh/reset/reinstall would not copy these files to c:\windows.old

So, I have a new SSD and will install full retail Windows 10 Pro x64 onto it as soon as my magnitized screwdrivers arrive from Amazon to help deal with all of those tiny screws that I usually end up losing most during reassembly. (Thanks, Bruce).

In the interim, I am using a Sony Vaio laptop from 2007 with a Core2 single pentium CPU with a 100 GB HDD and 2 GB RAM running Windows 10 x86. It works great though.

Quite a speed reduction from my HP ENVY 17 quad-core; core i7 8/9 gen with 16 GB DDR4 RAM!

Thanks everyone.

John
 
Last edited:
zbook said:
These are some additional options:

Test the drive using a Sea Tools bootable flash drive: long generic testing
SeaTools for DOS - Hard Drive Diagnostic

If the drive fails consider backing up files using:
a) Ubuntu / Linux
b) a Windows 10 iso
c) placing the drive into an empty bay of another computer
d) HD enclosure

If the drive passes consider repairing as needed:
a) boot sector
b) drive file system
c) operating system
d) registry

Repairing Windows 8.1 allows an free upgrade to Windows 10.
Click to expand...

Thanks - I'll try it.
 
xilolee said:
I found another solution (if booting with a repair media and the automatic repair doesn't work).
These steps should be valid if you installed Windows 8/8.1 in a UEFI system.
They could not be valid/effettive if you installed Windows using the Legacy mode.
  • Open a command prompt (admin) (when you're using the repair media)
  • diskpart
  • select disk x
    (where x is your disk... Usually, it's 0: select disk 0)
  • list partition
  • select the system partition (usually, from 100MB to 500MB)
    select partition x
    (where x is your system partition)
  • detail partition
    To ensure it's the UEFI/EFI/ESP partition (fs=FAT32). I get:
    Read More:
  • assign letter=T
    (if you don't have volumes with a T letter assigned to them; otherwise, use another letter)
  • exit
  • cd /d T:\EFI\Microsoft\Boot
    (where T is the partition letter chosen before)
  • ren BCD corruptBCD.bak
  • bootrec /fixboot
  • bcdboot c:\windows /s T: /f:UEFI
    (where T is the partition letter chosen before)
  • shutdown /r /t 0
Click to expand...

Worth a try - thanks.
 
Wrench97 said:
With 2 bays you may also be able install a new ssd drive and do the upgrade install to the new drive.
Click to expand...
You mean upgrade W8.1 x64 to W10 x64? Or...?

8.1 is Home Premium type OEM edition and W10 is the top Pro full retail version from MVP/MSDN.

I once tried to upgrade 8.1 to Ultimate and it would not accept the MSDN key code.

Also, drive bay #2 is NOT bootable per my owner's manual, if that makes a difference here or not.
 
Open Command Prompt from Advanced Options or System Recovery Options menu.

At the prompt, type the bootrec command as shown below and then press Enter:

Code: 
bootrec /rebuildbcd

The bootrec command will search for Windows installations not included in the Boot Configuration Data and then ask you if you'd like to add one or more to it.

You should see one of the following messages at the command line.

Option 1

Scanning all disks for Windows installations.
Please wait, since this may take a while...
Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 0
The operation completed successfully.
Click to expand...


Option 2

Scanning all disks for Windows installations.
Please wait, since this may take a while...
Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 1
[1] D:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes/No/All:
Click to expand...

If you see:

Option 1: Move on to Step 3. This result most likely means that Windows installation data in the BCD store exists but bootrec couldn't find any additional installations of Windows on your computer to add to the BCD. That's fine, you'll just need to take a few extra steps to rebuild the BCD.

Option 2: Enter Y or Yes to the Add installation to boot list? question, after which you should see a The operation completed successfully message, followed by a blinking cursor at the prompt. Finish up by restarting your computer.

You'll first have to "remove" BCD store manually and then try to rebuild it again.

At the prompt, execute following command as shown and then press Enter key:

Code: 
C:

At the prompt, execute the bcdedit command as shown and then press Enter:

Code: 
bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

The bcdedit command is used here to export the BCD store as a file: bcdbackup. There's no need to specify a file extension.

The command should return the following on screen, meaning the BCD export worked as expected:

The operation completed successfully.
Click to expand...

At this point, you need to adjust several file attributes for the BCD store so you can manipulate it.

At the prompt, execute the attrib command exactly like this:

Code: 
attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

What you just did with the attrib command was remove the hidden, read-only, and system attributes from the file bcd. Those attributes restricted the actions you could take on the file. Now that they're gone, you can manipulate the file more freely - specifically, rename it.

To rename the BCD store, execute the ren command as shown:

Code: 
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

Try rebuilding the BCD again by executing the following, followed by Enter:

Code: 
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Which should produce this in the Command Prompt window:

Scanning all disks for Windows installations.
Please wait, since this may take a while...
Successfully scanned Windows installations.
Total identified Windows installations: 1
[1] D:\Windows
Add installation to boot list? Yes/No/All:
Click to expand...

Meaning that the BCD store rebuild is progressing as expected.

At the Add installation to boot list? question, type Y or Yes, and press Enter key.

You should see this on screen:

The operation completed successfully.
Click to expand...

Meaning that the BCD rebuild is complete.

Restart your computer.

Assuming that an issue with the BCD store was the only problem, Windows should start as expected.
 
zbook said:
Consider backing up all important files on the non-Windows drive using a bootable Ubuntu flash drive (has GUI):

Create a bootable USB stick on Windows | Ubuntu
Linux to the rescue! How Ubuntu can help a computer in distress

Then custom install Windows 10 > creates windows.old > possible free upgrade to windows 10 > then can clean install with licensing on Microsoft servers

Custom Install Windows 10
How to Restore Files from Windows.old Folder in Windows 10
Click to expand...

Thanks. I was thinking about Linux, but got frustrated while using it! Linux would be much easier and faster to use I think than CMD xcopy command for a fairly full 1 TB HDD.

I'm waiting for a new 2 TB or 4 TB WD USB 3.0 (3.2 - ??) drive from Amazon to arrive. "Amazon Prime" seems to mean ~3 day delivery instead of overnight delivery now. I just hope this one lasts. My ~13 month-old WD 7 TB USB external drive failed when I went to use it 2 weeks ago when this error first happened. Of course it only had a 1 year warranty on it.

John
 
FreeBooter said:
Open Command Prompt from Advanced Options or System Recovery Options menu.

At the prompt, type the bootrec command as shown below and then press Enter:

Code: 
bootrec /rebuildbcd

The bootrec command will search for Windows installations not included in the Boot Configuration Data and then ask you if you'd like to add one or more to it.

You should see one of the following messages at the command line.

Option 1




Option 2



If you see:

Option 1: Move on to Step 3. This result most likely means that Windows installation data in the BCD store exists but bootrec couldn't find any additional installations of Windows on your computer to add to the BCD. That's fine, you'll just need to take a few extra steps to rebuild the BCD.

Option 2: Enter Y or Yes to the Add installation to boot list? question, after which you should see a The operation completed successfully message, followed by a blinking cursor at the prompt. Finish up by restarting your computer.

You'll first have to "remove" BCD store manually and then try to rebuild it again.

At the prompt, execute following command as shown and then press Enter key:

Code: 
C:

At the prompt, execute the bcdedit command as shown and then press Enter:

Code: 
bcdedit /export c:\bcdbackup

The bcdedit command is used here to export the BCD store as a file: bcdbackup. There's no need to specify a file extension.

The command should return the following on screen, meaning the BCD export worked as expected:



At this point, you need to adjust several file attributes for the BCD store so you can manipulate it.

At the prompt, execute the attrib command exactly like this:

Code: 
attrib c:\boot\bcd -h -r -s

What you just did with the attrib command was remove the hidden, read-only, and system attributes from the file bcd. Those attributes restricted the actions you could take on the file. Now that they're gone, you can manipulate the file more freely - specifically, rename it.

To rename the BCD store, execute the ren command as shown:

Code: 
ren c:\boot\bcd bcd.old

Try rebuilding the BCD again by executing the following, followed by Enter:

Code: 
bootrec /rebuildbcd

Which should produce this in the Command Prompt window:



Meaning that the BCD store rebuild is progressing as expected.

At the Add installation to boot list? question, type Y or Yes, and press Enter key.

You should see this on screen:



Meaning that the BCD rebuild is complete.

Restart your computer.

Assuming that an issue with the BCD store was the only problem, Windows should start as expected.
Click to expand...

I will be glad to try this, but I know for a fact that the only OS on the system is Windows 8.1 x64 - OEM version.

Since I get free Windows full retail ISOs for being a Microsoft MVP, I thought that this would be a good time to upgrade to an SSD with Windows 10 x64 Pro version.
 
jcgriff2 said:
I will be glad to try this, but I know for a fact that the only OS on the system is Windows 8.1 x64 - OEM version.

Since I get free Windows full retail ISOs for being a Microsoft MVP, I thought that this would be a good time to upgrade to an SSD with Windows 10 x64 Pro version.
Click to expand...

It is time to upgrade:)
If you can't boot from the second drive by then my suggestion isn't going to work, if your laptop has "secure boot" in the bios make sure to turn that off before tryig to install Win 10.
 
Wrench97 said:
It is time to upgrade:)
If you can't boot from the second drive by then my suggestion isn't going to work, if your laptop has "secure boot" in the bios make sure to turn that off before tryig to install Win 10.
Click to expand...

I have not gotten to the old laptop yet due to the amount of work that I lost over the 6-8 weeks that I was without a decent laptop.

I plan to just put in a new 250 or 500 GB SSD and load W10 Pro retail onto it.

Not sure if I'll be able to get anything off of the old drive or not. I hope so.
 
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