Creating BCD from scratch with BCDedit.exe and add "Repair my computer" WinRE Recovery Environment

My Boot Configuration Data (BCD Store) for my Windows 7 got hosed and I had to delete it and boot off a Windows DVD, hit Shift + F10 to get at a command prompt, delete my old BCD and run Bootrec.exe /rebuildBCD to even be able to boot my system. But RebuildBCD left the file with the bare minimum necessary to boot, nearly blank, and I lost the option to run "Repair My Computer" from the F8 screen. I found a useful website: http://forum.acronis.com/forum/6758 that helped me get back on the right track, but I had to dabble around myself to get all the settings that Windows 7 Installation would normally handle. Follow these instructions to restore your BCD file so that you can run "Repair" off the hard drive instead of digging around for a DVD. "bcdedit /enum all" lists your BCD config and "bcdedit /enum all /v" lists all GUIDs instead of friendlynames. the GUID's I have listed ARE different (make sure you check the 8th digit). Before you begin you might want to do "bcdedit /export C:\before.BCD".

• 1. Create necessary optional entries

bcdedit /create {globalsettings}
bcdedit /create {bootloadersettings}
bcdedit /create {resumeloadersettings}
bcdedit /create {emssettings}
bcdedit /create {dbgsettings}
bcdedit /create {hypervisorsettings}
bcdedit /create {badmemory}
bcdedit /create {memdiag}

• 2. Establish proper settings for these optional entries

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} INHERIT {globalsettings}
bcdedit /set {current} INHERIT {bootloadersettings}
bcdedit /set {globalsettings} INHERIT {dbgsettings} {emssettings} {badmemory}
bcdedit /set {bootloadersettings} INHERIT {globalsettings} {hypervisorsettings}
bcdedit /set {resumeloadersettings} INHERIT {globalsettings}
bcdedit /set {emssettings} bootems YES
bcdedit /dbgsettings SERIAL DEBUGPORT:1 BAUDRATE:115200
bcdedit /hypervisorsettings SERIAL DEBUGPORT:1 BAUDRATE:115200
bcdedit /toolsdisplayorder {memdiag}

bcdedit /set {memdiag} description "Windows Memory Diagnostic"
bcdedit /set {memdiag} device partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
bcdedit /set {memdiag} path \boot\memtest.exe
bcdedit /set {memdiag} locale en-US
bcdedit /set {memdiag} inherit {globalsettings}
bcdedit /set {memdiag} badmemoryaccess Yes

• 3. Link "Windows Boot Manager" and primary "Windows Boot Loader" to your existing "Resume from Hibernate" identifier (replace the GUID)

bcdedit /set {bootmgr} resumeobject {8de128fe-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459}
bcdedit /set {current} resumeobject {8de128fe-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459}

• 4. Create loader entry for the "Recovery"(Repair My Computer)
• Check C:\Recovery\ (gain access by adding "Users" READ permission)
• Copy & Use that GUID here for device and osdevice - in my case 8de128ff-............ omitting the curly braces { } after [C:]\Recovery
• On Line 2 and Line 3, for device and OSdevice, the final GUID after \Winre.wim doesnt exist yet (if you look carefully the 8th digit is changed - and will now have to be created .... 
•  after \Winre.wim, create a NEW UNUSED GUID (change the 8th digit) - it will be used in step 6.

bcdedit /create {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} /application osloader
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} device ramdisk=[C:]\Recovery\8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459\Winre.wim,{8de128f5-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459}
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} osdevice ramdisk=[C:]\Recovery\8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459\Winre.wim,{8de128f5-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459}
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} path \windows\system32\winload.exe
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} description "Windows Recovery Environment WinRE"
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} inherit {bootloadersettings}
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} systemroot \windows
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} nx OptIn
bcdedit /set {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} winpe yes

• 5. Enable the {current} OS to allow the Recovery Sequence you just created

bcdedit /set {current} recoverysequence {8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459}
bcdedit /set {current} recoveryenabled Yes

• 6. With that NEW UNUSED GUID you just created in step 4, create the "Ramdisk Options" entry for the Recovery Sequence
• On Line 4, after \Recovery\ - use the GUID you found in C:\Recovery\ -again Omit the Curly braces { } 

bcdedit /create {8de128f5-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} /device
bcdedit /set {8de128f5-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} description "Ramdisk Options"
bcdedit /set {8de128f5-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} ramdisksdidevice partition=C:
bcdedit /set {8de128f5-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459} ramdisksdipath \Recovery\8de128ff-03a5-11e1-a7d3-a215a48a5459\boot.sdi

Now you are done, and might want to export again to not lose your work, "bcdedit /export C:\AFTER.BCD"

SOLUTION TO Windows Backup Error Code 0x810000027
The backup application could not start due to an internal error: Access denied. Check system configuration.

After about 4 hours of reading and trying new fixes for errors 0x810000027, I finally managed to get Windows Backup to change settings and start.

This is all-inclusive in case more things are broken for you.

1. Make sure the following services are set to Stopped
Block Level Backup Engine Service
Microsoft Software Shadow Copy
Volume Shadow Copy
Windows Backup (also make sure the Backup & Restore window is closed or this will auto-restart)
2. In Explorer, Gain Access to the System Volume Information folder (right click, properties, security, advanced, owner tab, Edit button, click your user name & check Replace owner on subcontainers and objects, OK, Yes, OK, OK, OK.
3. Using a 3rd party tool (Eraser) - delete System Volume Information\Windows Backup and System Volume Information\WindowsImageBackup,
4. Make sure the services in step #1 are started again and set to automatic for good measure.
5. Launch Windows Backup & Restore

Click change settings, and voila the backup is working!.

Post a comment if this worked or did not work for you.

I am now A+ Certified - (2009 Edition Exam, including Windows 7), as of October 14th 2011:

220-701 - CompTIA A+ Essentials Score - Score: 859/900
220-702 - CompTIA A+ Practical Application - Score: 868/900

And I will be studying for and obtaining additional certifications.

SPOTIFY and OPTING OUT of the SPOTIFY PEER TO PEER NETWORK (P2P)

Spotify is a GREAT program for listening to music with over 15 million songs available for FREE (with occasional ads). I have a premium subscription and it's well worth the $10 to do away with the ads, get Spotify on my iPhone, and listen to songs offline. What most people do not realize is that Spotify (even Premium subscribers) are unwittingly made a part of the Spotify P2P Network which functions somewhat like BitTorrent to help take the load off of the Spotify Main Server Network. I found my computer opening 50-60 peer client connections everytime I had Spotify open, which was undesirable. After an hour of tinkering aruond, I was able to BLOCK any Peer-to-Peer connections.

All ports can be be blocked, the only Requirement for Spotify is allow Outbound Connections to "Remote Port" 4070 (Spotify port) or 443 (HTTPS) or 80 (HTTP) to *.ash.spotify.com (currently 193.182.8.3 - 193.182.8.90). (443 and 80 are failsafes)

(click to enlarge in New Window)

A crash course on how this works is explained in (and reposted by me) from http://pansentient.com/2011/04/spotify-technology-some-stats-and-how-spotify-works/

General Stats

• Spotify is the only on-demand music streaming service that’s not web-based. Instead, it uses a peer-to-peer network (p2p) that can scale up to meet the demands of millions of users.
• Only 8.8% of music playback comes from Spotify’s servers. The rest comes from the peer-to-peer network (35.8%) or your local cache (55.4%). The exception here is Spotify on smartphones, which gets all the music directly from the Spotify servers

The Peer to Peer Network (P2P)

• Spotify’s p2p network works like a BitTorrent network to locate peers (other users who have the song you want to listen to). It uses a proprietary protocol designed especially for streaming music.
• There’s no “preferred” peers or supernodes, but a future improvement might be to use peer-to-peer overlays to exploit the overlap in interests between users.
• The maximum number of peers in the network is 60, with a soft-limit of 50 peers.
• The client uploads to at most 4 peers at a time.
• Server-side trackers and network queries are used to locate other users who have the music you’re listening to.
• Spotify uses TCP as the transport protocol instead of UDP, since it can take advantage of TCP’s congestion controls and ability to re-send lost packets.

What I Found Out:

Spotify wants to listen on ports locally so it can automatically make you a part of its peer-to-peer network. Despite these facts, YOU CAN OPT OUT of the P2P Network! Being a part of the P2P network is not a requirement.

Everytime you click a remote track and listen to it, tiny pieces of the file are downloaded from Spotify's MAIN Server Network (and stored in a cryptic and encrypted file/format which I personally have yet to determine the method to this madness)

Spotify Local Storage Directory

• on Windows 7 = C:\Users\ [you] \AppData\Local\Spotify\Storage
  

Everytime you click the toggle button "AVAILABLE OFFLINE" Spotify downloads the entire playlist of files to your local storage directory and if your internet connection goes offline, you can still listen to the songs. THIS BUTTON ALSO ESTABLISHES YOU AS AN UPLOADER ON THE P2P NETWORK. For a single song, your computer WILL immediately initiate 4 UPLOAD connections to 4 "peers" on the P2P network. If you don't know how to block ports, you can simply never use "offline files" and you will never upload!

Spotify Listening Port List:

0.0.0.0 =(all available interfaces)
127.0.0.1 =(localhost)
192.168.0.x =(external facing NAT private IP, or would be public IP from Cable modem/DSL)

• TCP Port 4370 (bound to 127.0.0.1) - initially active when not even logged in .
  
• TCP Port 4380 (bound to 127.0.0.1) - initially active when not even logged in .
  
• TCP Port 19906 (bound to 0.0.0.0) - once you connect.
  
• TCP Port 57621 (bound to 0.0.0.0) - once you connect.
  
• UDP Port 1900 - SSDP - (bound to 192.168.0.x) - Publishes to Gateway (192.168.0.1) & Multicast (239.255.255.250) - makes discoverable on your network for any capable devices
  
• UDP Port 21328 - (bound to 192.168.0.x) - "tracker of sorts" for the P2P client network
  
• UDP Port 57621 - (bound to 0.0.0.0) Broadcasts to (192.168.0.255)
• temporary & dynamic UDP +/-56000 to 63325+/- (may be incomplete) - unsure on this one.

If your router or firewall BLOCKS these or all ports, Spotify will revert to downloading all content from the Spotify Main Server Network as long as it can connect to Remote Port 4070. Failing to login/connect on port 4070, Spotify will try "failsafes" of port 443 and port 80 in the order: 4070, 443, 80. I assume this is to preserve connectivity for business/corporate firewalled networks. The servers are named such as afton.ash.spotify.com, aretha.ash.spotify.com, cameo.ash.spotify.com, etc... The current range of IP's used for these main servers are 193.182.8.3 to 193.182.8.90.

Before I figured any of this out, I used to whitelist Spotify.exe through Windows firewall and found that my NAT router (tomato) was still allowing the opening of 50+ connections and uploading to peer clients. I have since removed the whitelisted Spotify.exe and have created a rule for destination port 4070. Optionally you can narrow it down to destination IPs 193.182.8.3 - 193.182.8.90. (IP 193.182.8.1/Subnet 255.255.255.128 would be another choice)

CONCLUSION:

The only Requirement for Spotify is ALLOW Outbound Connections to "Remote Port" 4070 to *.ash.spotify.com (currently 193.182.8.3 - 193.182.8.90 or IP 193.182.8.1/Subnet 255.255.255.128)
Failure to login/connect on port 4070, Spotify will try "failsafes" of port 443 and port 80 in the order: 4070, 443 & 80. This preserves connectivity for business/corporate strict firewalled networks.


IP Address Host Name MAC Address Response Time TCP Ports
========== ========= =========== ============= =========
193.182.8.1 rt-vrrp-pub.ash.spotify.com 17 ms
193.182.8.2 fw-vrrp-pub.ash.spotify.com 17 ms
193.182.8.3 althea.ash.spotify.com 19 ms
193.182.8.4 cameron.ash.spotify.com 17 ms
193.182.8.5 camille.ash.spotify.com 18 ms
193.182.8.6 candice.ash.spotify.com 16 ms
193.182.8.7 cadace.ash.spotify.com 17 ms
193.182.8.8 aria.ash.spotify.com 17 ms
193.182.8.9 afton.ash.spotify.com 16 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.10 agnes.ash.spotify.com 16 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.11 alma.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.12 anissa.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.13 ann.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.14 aretha.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.15 aurora.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.16 avery.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.17 daryl.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.18 bernadine.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.19 ashton.ash.spotify.com 27 ms
193.182.8.20 beth.ash.spotify.com 24 ms
193.182.8.22 deborah.ash.spotify.com 18 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.23 debbie.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.24 dayana.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.25 david.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.26 claudine.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.27 clementine.ash.spotify.com 17 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.28 clemmie.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.29 cordelia.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.30 consuelo.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.31 alondra.ash.spotify.com 25 ms
193.182.8.32 autumn.ash.spotify.com 18 ms
193.182.8.33 cindy.ash.spotify.com 20 ms
193.182.8.34 chihiro.ash.spotify.com 24 ms
193.182.8.35 accalia.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.36 ahava.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.37 ainara.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.38 alesti.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.39 ambika.ash.spotify.com 28 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.40 andromache.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.41 anemone.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.42 araluen.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.43 araminta.ash.spotify.com 28 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.44 arantxa.ash.spotify.com 28 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.45 bansari.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.46 berdine.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.47 bhavya.ash.spotify.com 26 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.48 bracha.ash.spotify.com 26 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.49 bronnen.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.50 cameo.ash.spotify.com 26 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.51 casondra.ash.spotify.com 28 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.52 cauvery.ash.spotify.com 28 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.53 cleva.ash.spotify.com 28 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.54 corinne.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.55 cyrena.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.56 dietlinde.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.57 drisana.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.58 fallon.ash.spotify.com 26 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.59 frankie.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.60 gladys.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.61 gypsy.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.62 haifa.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.63 193.182.8.63 25 ms
193.182.8.64 hanane.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.65 herlinda.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.66 ilisapesi.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.67 iria.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.70 kajal.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.71 kenyatta.ash.spotify.com 26 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.72 kismet.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.73 laurinda.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.74 lotta.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.75 lysandra.ash.spotify.com 23 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.76 nediva.ash.spotify.com 26 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.78 193.182.8.78 23 ms
193.182.8.79 rosevear.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.80 samatha.ash.spotify.com 21 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.81 samicah.ash.spotify.com 27 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.82 193.182.8.82 27 ms
193.182.8.83 stacia.ash.spotify.com 22 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.85 tathra.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.86 felice.ash.spotify.com 21 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.87 nieves.ash.spotify.com 25 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.88 shulamit.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.89 neeharika.ash.spotify.com 21 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.90 shradhdha.ash.spotify.com 24 ms 4070, 443, 80
193.182.8.253 core-ash-001.ash.spotify.com 25 ms
193.182.8.254 core-ash-002.ash.spotify.com 24 ms


Re-established my Blog. This will be a place where I can post things that I wish to make public, such as discoveries and revelations about computer technologies and such. The personal nature of it will be gradually phased out.