BCDEDIT.EXE /CREATESTORE causes error the boot configuration store could not be opened

Question

I'm upgrading XP to Windows 7 with dual boot using an image and successfully installed on 6 other computers, the last two are failing when I issue the command:
bcdedit.exe /createstore
The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The requested system device cannot be found.
I'm using a known good WINPE 4.0 (Windows 8) x64 USB boot environment, so most solutions that state to run elevated as an administrator do not apply.
C: is NTFS active partition, chkdsk doesn't find any errors on C:
I've updated the bootsector with the command
bootsect /nt60 c: /force /mbr
this of course disables booting into XP, but I can reboot and re-enable XP via
bootsect /nt52 c: /force /mbr
If I try a modified command
bcdedit.exe /createstore c:\BOOT\BCD
this also fails, and I've verified that the hidden system C:\BOOT folder does not exist before issuing the command
If I pre-create c:\BOOT (w/o hidden or system attributes) the command
bcdedit.exe /createstore c:\BOOT\BCD
does run successfully, but the following commands to add the Windows 7 boot entries and legacy NTLDR for XP dual boot still fail!
bcdboot.exe d:\windows /s c: /v
bcdedit.exe /create {ntldr} /d "Windows XP SP3"
bcdedit.exe /set {ntldr} device partition=C:
bcdedit.exe /set {ntldr} path \ntldr
bcdedit.exe /displayorder {ntldr} /addfirst
bcdedit.exe /default {ntldr}
bcdedit.exe /timeout 5
The two failing computers are older Dell OptiPlex 960 models, so I'm using traditional BIOS boot, EFI is not supported on these models.  Hard drives are regular SATA (1 per computer), no other mass storage devices present besides DVD (empty), and hard
drives are not GPT formatted.  Drives are old enough that they are regular 512 sector devices (no 512 emulation or 4K issues).

Answer 1

Thanks for your response Niki Han, the current status is the computers are booting correctly into the original XP SP3, since I've started them with my WINPE
4.0 x64 USB flash  drive and issued the command to restore the original NTLDR boot process "bootsect /nt52 c: /force /mbr".
I also verified that there are no hidden partitions, and that there is only one active partition, C: which is a standard NTFS volume:
Partition 1
Type  : 07
Hidden: No
Active: Yes
I've also verified that the BIOS is the same and the hard drive mode set in the BIOS is the autodetect RAID in both the working and non-working systems.  I'll review the article you provided at
http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/ee829686(v=ws.10).aspx#BKMK_Step4
which may allow me to get these two systems dual booting.  I do know that I'll need to delete the corrupted hidden system c:\Boot folder to avoid any issues.
I do want to figure out why the command
bcdedit.exe /createstore
is outputting this error on just these two systems:
The boot configuration data store could not be opened.
The requested system device cannot be found.
What exactly does bcdedit.exe do when given the /createstore command, does it create a new empty store from the exe itself, or does it copy a store from the running system?  I think the key to figure this out is understanding what the error "The
requested system device cannot be found." is trying to tell us.