How can I set the location of the BCD system store for bcdedit

Question

I am using a machine that dual boots windows 8.1 and OSX using the chimera boot manager. The disk layout is MBR so there is no EFI partition, the boot files can be found on C:\boot. When I try to use bcdedit in the command prompt I get the following error:

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /enum
The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The system cannot find the file specified.

However if I manually specify the bcd location (which is at c:\boot\bcd) everything works fine, I can edit the store, and the changes gets picked up the next restart just as expected:

C:\Windows\system32>bcdedit /store c:/boot/bcd /enum
Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
(...)

So it seems bcdedit doesn't know where the system store is. Is there a way to fix this? It might also be helpful if I'd known where bcdedit tries to find the system store in the first place.

• NetwOrchestration: You can follow @ArtHare instructions, but it converts your dual boot machine to a windows only machine. If you want to keep it dual boot, it's normal to not find your BCD store in default location, because it's default location is the active partition, which is now hosting Chimera bootloader.
• SztupY: Note: this is an almost 3 year old question. Since then I migrated over to an EFI based solution, which properly solves all of the issues.

Answer 1

Edit: this does not solve the original user's dual-boot issue. But this page was one of the first Google hits for my bcd-not-found issue, so others may find it useful if they're simply trying to fix their BCDedit behavior.

It appears that bcdedit, by default, attempts to load the BCD store from the active partition. You can use diskpart to modify which partition is active.

So I'd do diskpart like: diskpart list disk select <your disk number> list partition select <partition number that includes your boot/BCD file> active exit bcdedit Hopefully that last bcdedit will find your BCD store.

• NetwOrchestration: I wouldn't recomend that! since it's a dual boot with another incompatible OS (OSX) That's why the third party boot manager (Chimera) must be on the active partition, so it can manage which OS is going to boot. By setting the windows partition as active, thus reversible, but he definitely converts his dual boot machine to a windows only machine. Please edit your answer with this precautions.
• ArtHare: @amirhossein - edited to highlight my solution's focus on single boot systems.