How to Fix Total Identified Windows Installations 0 Error in Windows 10/11

When running bootrec /scanos or bootrec /rebuildbcd, you may encounter the “Total identified Windows installations: 0” error. This means Windows Recovery Environment cannot find your existing Windows installation during the BCD repair process. However, it does not always mean your Windows files are lost.

This issue may be caused by a corrupted BCD store, missing boot files, or incorrect partition information.

In this guide, you will learn how to fix “Total identified Windows installations: 0” Windows 11 and repair Windows startup.

Why Does bootrec /rebuildbcd Find 0 Windows Installations

Several causes can prevent bootrec /rebuildbcd from detecting your Windows installation. The table below summarizes the most common ones.

After identifying the possible cause, follow the solutions below to repair the boot configuration and restore your Windows installation.

Solution 1. Repair BCD

If you receive the “Total identified Windows installations: 0” message instead of “Total identified Windows installations: 1” message, you need to run a few more commands to fix this issue and continue to rebuild BCD.

Step 1. Create a Windows 10 bootable USB drive with Windows Media Creation Tool. If you have one, just ignore this step.

Step 2. Change BIOS boot order to boot from the USB flash drive.

Step 3. On the Windows setup page, choose your language preference, and then click Next to continue.

Step 4. Go to Repair your computer > Troubleshoot > Command Prompt.

Step 5. Input the following command and hit Enter. After inputting this command, you may encounter the total identified Windows installations: 0 error. Just follow the step-by-step guide to continue.

bootrec /rebuildbcd

Step 6. Type the following commands and hit Enter after each one

• bcdedit /export c:bcdbackup (This step is to created a backup of the previous BCD store.)
• attrib c:bootbcd -h -r -s (This step is to remove the hidden, read-only, and system attributes from the file BCD.)
• ren c:bootbcd bcd.old (This is to rename the BCD store)
• bootrec /rebuildbcd

Then following contents will appear:

Successfully scanned Windows installations.

Total identified Windows installations: 1

[1] C:Windows

Add installation to boot list? Yes<Y>/No<N>/All<A>:

Press Y to add the installation to boot list and hit Enter. Then you will see the “The operation completed successfully” message, which indicates that the BCD rebuild is finished completely.

Step 7. The error has been removed now. Then you can restart your computer and check to see if you are able to boot normally. Windows should start as expected.

If this method does not work, you may try the next solution to fix error total identified Windows installations 0 Windows 7/8/10.

Solution 2. Perform System Restore

Here is the tutorial.

Step 1. Boot from the bootable USB flash drive you made before.

Step 2. Go to Repair your computer > Troubleshoot get into the Advanced options page.

Step 3. On this page, click System Restore and follow the prompts to revert system to a normal state with system restore points.

System Restore can help you remove the error total identified Windows installations 0 and fix Windows startup issue in one step, which is very convenient and effective.

However, if you do not have created a system restore point before, you are unable to perform a system restore. And if other fixes cannot help you, you may need to reinstall Windows 10.

Solution 3. Reinstall Windows 10

If the above fixes cannot help you or you’ve tried many fixes on the Internet but just don’t work, you can reinstall Windows 10 to resolve this issue.

Step 1. Create a Windows 10 bootable USB drive with Windows Media Creation Tool. If you have one, just ignore this step.

Step 2. Change BIOS boot order to boot from the USB drive.

Step 3. On the Windows setup page, choose your language preference, and then click Next to continue.

Step 4. Click Install Now.

Step 5. Enter the license key. You can also click I don’t have a product key to skip it, but you will be required to enter the license key later.

Step 6. Choose the operating system you want to install and click Next.

Step 7. Read and accept the license terms and click Next.

Step 8. Here choose one method to reinstall your operating system.

If you choose to perform a clean install (install Windows only), you need to backup important files in advance, as this option will wipe your hard drive and make a fresh start.

• [Upgrade: Install Windows and keep files, settings, and applications]: This will keep all your files, settings and applications saved in the system partition. However, it is only available when a supported version of Windows is already running on the computer.
• [Custom: Install Windows only (advanced)]: This will remove all your personal files, settings and applications and give you a clean install of Windows 10. You can make changes to partitions and drives. It is recommend to backup your files before you continue.

Step 7. Follow the on-screen instructions to complete the system installation. The installation process will start and your PC will reboot. When it’s finished, you just need to log in with your account.

Recover Data from PC with Total Identified Windows Installations 0 Error

If you come across any data loss, you may use MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate to help you make data recovery. MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate is a piece of professional hard drive recovery software. It can help you recover many types of file including documents, photos, audio, music, videos, emails, archives and so on.

If you want to recover data from the PC with total identified Windows installations 0 error directly, you can just follow the steps below.

Now I will show you the detailed steps to recover data from the unbootable computer.

Step 1. Get MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate by click the following button. Install it on a normal PC that can boot into Windows and launch it to get the main interface.

Step 2. Click the Bootable Media on the main interface and follow the prompts to create a bootable USB drive. If your PC can boot into Windows, you can use the software on your PC to perform data recovery directly.

Step 3. Boot from the USB drive and you will see the MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition.

Step 4. On the interface of MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition, you can click Data Recovery button on the top toolbar to launch it.

Step 5. On the Data Recovery interface, choose a partition and click Scan button on the lower right corner.

There are five parts listed on the interface, namely Recovery Result, Logical Drive, Lost Partition, Unallocated Space, Hard Disk.

• Recovery Result will recover the last scanning result and you can load .rss file manually to get result recovery you’ve scanned.
• Logical Drive will list all existing partitions on your PC.
• Hard Disk will show you all disks connected on your PC including SSD, HDD, USB flash drives, SD cards as so on.
• Lost Partition or Unallocated Space part will only appear when there is lost partitions or unallocated spaces on your PC hard drive.

Step 6. You see, the software is scanning your drive right now. When it is finished, you can check out the recovery result. During the process, you can pause or stop the scanning any time you want. Just click the Pause or Stop button near the progress bar.

Step 7. When it is finished, you can check the items you want to recover and click Save button.

These features on the top tool bar can help you find needed files quickly.

• Show Lost Files: Click this button to check out lost files only.
• Find: Click this button to find a file by its file name exactly with its Match Case and Match Word option.
• Filter: Click this button to find needed files by filename/extension, file size, file creation or modification date
• Preview: Click this button to preview a file before recovery. The supported preview file types reach to 70 in 14 categories.

Step 8. Choose a directory to save the needed files immediately. It is recommended to save the recovered files on another drive. Otherwise, the lost/deleted data could be overwritten.

If you find any data loss on your PC, you can utilize MiniTool Partition Wizard Pro Ultimate to recover the data immediately. And keep in mind that do not save new files to the hard drive that encounter data loss, or the lost data will be overwritten.

I have very important files stored on my PC. But my PC got into trouble with total identified Windows installations 0 error message. Luckily, with MiniTool Partition Wizard, I successfully recovered data from my drive.Click to tweet

Bottom Line

This article has shown you how to remove the error total identified Windows installations 0 when you rebuild BCD in CMD. The above three methods are proven to be effective. If you come across the error total identified Windows installations: 0 when running bootrec /scanos OR bootrec /rebuildbcd, you might as well try the fixes shown in this article.

If you have any question about how to fix the error total identified Windows installations 0 Windows 7/8/10 or recover data from the computer, you may post your comment in the following comment zone. And we will reply as soon as possible. If you need any help when using MiniTool software, you can contact us via [email protected].

Total Identified Windows Installations 0 FAQ