Windows command line bcdboot command

Updated: 03/05/2023 by Computer Hope
Windows bcdboot command

The bcdboot command is a BCD (Boot Configuration Data) boot file creation and repair tool.

Availability

The bcdboot command is available in the following Microsoft operating systems recovery environments:

Bcdboot command syntax

The bcdboot.exe command-line tool is used to copy critical boot files to the system partition and create a new system BCD store.

bcdboot <source> [/l <locale>] [/s <volume-letter> [/f <firmware>]] [/v] [/vbcd] [/m [{OS Loader ID}]] [/addlast] [/p] [/c]
source Specifies the location of the windows system root.
/l Specifies an optional locale parameter to use when initializing the BCD store. The default is US English.
/s Specifies an optional volume letter parameter to designate the target system partition where boot environment files are copied. The default is the system partition identified by the firmware.
/v Enables verbose mode.
/vbcd Enables BCD logging.
/m If an OS (Operating System) loader GUID (Globally Unique IDentifier) is provided, this option merges the specified loader object with the system template to produce a bootable entry. Otherwise, only global objects are merged.
/d Specifies that the existing default Windows boot entry should be preserved.
/f Used with the /s command, specifies the firmware type of the target system partition. Options for <firmware> are 'UEFI', 'BIOS', or 'ALL'.
/addlast Specifies that the windows boot manager firmware entry should be added last. The default behavior is to add it first.
/bcdclean Clean the BCD Store. By default, removes any duplicate entries in the BCD. Can be followed by 'full'. In this case, each entry is scanned. If the corresponding device for that entry does not exist, the entry is deleted.
/p Specifies that the windows boot manager firmware entry position should be preserved. If entry does not exist, a new entry is added in the first position.
/c Specifies that any existing objects described by the template should not be migrated. 
Examples: bcdboot c:\windows /l en-us
          bcdboot c:\windows /s h:
          bcdboot c:\windows /s h: /f UEFI
          bcdboot c:\windows /m {d58d10c6-df53-11dc-878f-00064f4f4e08}
          bcdboot c:\windows /d /addlast
          bcdboot c:\windows /p

Bcdboot examples

See the bcdboot syntax above for examples.