How to restore Windows boot after resizing system partition ?

Question

I have an fairly new HP Pavilion 14-n228ca notebook which I intend to use mostly for Linux, but still wish to occasionally run the WIndows 8.1 that it shipped with.
I installed CentOS 6.5 using the dual-boot procedure I have used many times in the past with XP and Vista, viz. resize the main NTFS filesystem, delete the partition and recreate it smaller at the exact same start byte.
Normally (on XP,Vista) Windows boots from GRUB, but here I get an error "file \Boot\BCD - missing or contains errors"
F9 at boot gets me a hardware boot menu, where I have a choice of "OS boot manager", EFI file, or "notebook hard drive". The last gets me GRUB. The first drops me to a repair menu where I can try autorepair, which fails, or a command
line.
The command line allows me to run diskpart and assign a drive letter to the system partition, at which point I can run chkfs successfully and access files.
If I try "bootrec /rebuildbcd" it finds one valid volume at \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HardDiskVolume4\Windows but then says "system cannot find the file specified"
How can I restore the ability to boot the Windows partition, preferably without messing up the Linux one ?

Answer 1

I have an fairly new HP Pavilion 14-n228ca notebook which I intend to use mostly for Linux, but still wish to occasionally run the WIndows 8.1 that it shipped with.
I installed CentOS 6.5 using the dual-boot procedure I have used many times in the past with XP and Vista, viz. resize the main NTFS filesystem, delete the partition and recreate it smaller at the exact same start byte.
Normally (on XP,Vista) Windows boots from GRUB, but here I get an error "file \Boot\BCD - missing or contains errors"
F9 at boot gets me a hardware boot menu, where I have a choice of "OS boot manager", EFI file, or "notebook hard drive". The last gets me GRUB. The first drops me to a repair menu where I can try autorepair, which fails, or a command line.
The command line allows me to run diskpart and assign a drive letter to the system partition, at which point I can run chkfs successfully and access files.
If I try "bootrec /rebuildbcd" it finds one valid volume at \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HardDiskVolume4\Windows but then says "system cannot find the file specified"
How can I restore the ability to boot the Windows partition, preferably without messing up the Linux one ?
assuming your recovery partition is still extant, you can run that and go back to factory
backup files first natually
use a virtual machine linux or cloud
Corsair Carbide 300R with TX850V2
Asus M5A99FX PRO R2.0 CFX/SLI
AMD Phenom II 965 C3 Black Edition @ 4.0 GHz
G.SKILL RipjawsX DDR3-2133 8 GB
EVGA GTX 660 Ti FTW Signature 2 (GK104 Kepler)
Asus PA238QR IPS LED HDMI DP 1080p
ST2000DM001 & Windows 8.1 Professional x64
Microsoft Wireless Desktop 2000 & Wacom Bamboo CHT470M
Place your rig specifics into your signature like I have, makes it 100x easier to understand!
Hardcore Games Legendary is the Only Way to Play!