How to create windows 8 boot partition on drive that never had one?

Solution 1:

Try this:

Boot windows 8 CD, select language, and on the screen where says "Install now", select "Repair my computer" at the bottom left corner. Open "Troubleshoot", and "Advanced options". In advanced options menu select "Command prompt", and there type:

BOOTREC /FIXBOOT

BOOTREC /FIXMBR

BOOTREC /REBUILDBCD

One of those should work.

Solution 2:

You do not need to have a separate boot partition. While Linux has always had the concept of a separate /boot/ partition, on Windows it was only with Windows 7 that Microsoft started creating a separate 100 MiB partition at the start of your physical disk to hold the boot files.

The only benefit to a separate boot partition (apart from your actual Windows partition, that is) is that if you have multiple Windows installations on multiple partitions and you need to format/delete one or more of them, your boot will continue to work.

So your options are to either

1. Use a bootable partition editor to first move the start of your current Windows partition back around 100 MiB
2. Create a new 100 MiB FAT32 or NTFS partition in that space.
3. Make that partition active (set the "bootable" flag in the MBR)
4. Set up the 100 MiB partition to contain the needed boot info to load up Windows from your other partition, either manually or automatically from the Windows CD.

Or bypass all this kerfuffle about creating a separate boot partition and just do this:

1. Mark your Windows partition active/bootable (if it isn't already) using a bootable partition editor.
2. Install the correct boot settings to your Windows partition, again either manually or automatically from the Windows CD.

If you do not have a Windows setup CD, or if Startup Repair on the Windows setup CD failed to get your PC booting, you can still recreate the proper Windows boot settings on that partition with an automated boot recovery utility such as Easy Recovery Essentials. If you're using EasyRE to rebuild the boot partition, you can skip all partition-related steps as it'll automatically take care of setting the bootable flag on the correct partition for you.

You can use a free tool like GParted burned to a bootable CD for the needed partition changes, or use diskpart from the command line on the Windows setup CD, though I really don't recommend doing that.

In all cases you will need to ensure that your BIOS has the correct physical drive selected as the first boot device.

Disclosure: I worked on the development of EasyRE. (On the bright side, it means I can help you if you have any questions with it!)