Use the undocumented /raw
flag when running bcdedit /enum
.
Instead of printing unknown
, partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume1
or partition=C:
you will see output such as PartEx 6500000 HD MBR Sig:1a2b3c4d
. This is showing you what is actually recorded in the BCD, as opposed to an interpretation of the data given currently accessible disks/partitions/filesystems.
The meaning in this case is "find the MBR disk with signature 1a2b3c4d
and then look for the partition starting at byte offset 0x6500000
".
There are other possible formats, for instance if your entry refers to a partition on a disk with a GPT partition table it will probably refer to the partition UUID.
(My heartfelt thanks to SS64.com which is the only place on the entire internet that documents this /raw
flag. My heartfelt curses to Microsoft for failing to document this vital diagnostic option to bcdedit
!).