Windows 10 Dual Boot Windows present but not visible

[Tanyac]

The last few times I've installed Windows 10 from scratch the boot menu has been going invisible.

It's still there. I have a 10 second time out. If I wait 10 seconds it will boot into Windows 10. If I press down arrow and enter it will boot into windows 7 as it should.

Looking at the boot options I see the boot manager and both operating system entries are present. I've also done bcdedit /set {bootmgr} displaybootmenu yes, which of course did not help, because the boot manager is displayed, I just can't see it because the screen stays black.

There are lots of google results talking about the "missing" boot screen. Mine is not missing. It's invisible. I can also use WinAeroTweaker to force it to use the legacy text based one (Which I could also do with the corresponding BCDEDIT commands), but that is not what I want - I would like to have the W10 boot screen fixed.

thanks

 

[Sedivy]

It sounds like something wrong with your boot manager. You could try repair like this:
https://www.boyans.net/RepairWindows/RepairWindowsBCD.html
https://neosmart.net/wiki/recovering-windows-bootloader/

 

[Tanyac]

Thanks for your reply.

Doing a repair did not work.

This is my boot configuration

Although, I am now suspecting my video driver. After going through the situation, it seems to have started after one of two events (1). Installation of the video driver, or (2). Installation of the latest updates (Like KB4022725 etc).

Windows Boot Manager
--------------------
identifier              {9dea862c-5cdd-4e70-acc1-f32b344d4795}
device                  partition=\Device\HarddiskVolume4
path                    \EFI\MICROSOFT\BOOT\BOOTMGFW.EFI
description             Windows Boot Manager
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {7ea2e1ac-2e61-4728-aaa3-896d9d0a9f0e}
default                 {9c6924fb-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
resumeobject            {9c6924fa-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
displayorder            {9c6924fb-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
                        {9c6924d0-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
toolsdisplayorder       {b2721d73-1db4-4c62-bf78-c548a880142d}
timeout                 10

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {9c6924fb-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
device                  partition=H:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 10
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence        {9c6924fc-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
custom:15000066         3
recoveryenabled         Yes
custom:16000060         Yes
custom:17000077         352321653
osdevice                partition=H:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {9c6924fa-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
nx                      OptIn
custom:250000c2         1

Windows Boot Loader
-------------------
identifier              {9c6924d0-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
device                  partition=C:
path                    \Windows\system32\winload.efi
description             Windows 7
locale                  en-US
inherit                 {6efb52bf-1766-41db-a6b3-0ee5eff72bd7}
recoverysequence        {9c6924d1-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
recoveryenabled         Yes
osdevice                partition=C:
systemroot              \Windows
resumeobject            {9c6924cf-e5b9-11e6-b9ae-d416fc7de1c8}
nx                      OptIn

 

[Tanyac]

Ok, I've figured it out. It's related to the video driver and which monitor is the primary screen. I'll document this in detail in the next post for anyone else that runs into this problem.

 

[Tanyac]

Symptom
------------

On a system dual booting Windows 7 and Windows 10 (Where Windows 7 was installed first), with both OSs on separate physical drives, when the system boots the Windows 10 blue boot menu is not visible. Instead you get a blank screen. If you allow the timeout to elapse (Typically 30 seconds), the default OS will boot (As Windows 10 was last installed it will probably be the default OS).

System Specifics
---------------------
This occurs on systems with Dual Monitors (Both of mine are same brand/model). One is connected via HDMI and the other via DVI.
The Graphics card in use here is an ASUS GTX 980 Ti, however, this is not a contributor to the issue.*

Replicating the issue
--------------------------

When Windows 10 is installed it will see only one monitor by default. This is always the DVI monitor in a dual monitor configuration where the other monitor is connected via HDMI. Windows 7 also behaves the same way.

After installing the latest nVidia drivers and rebooting Windows 10 will detect both monitors. However, the HDMI monitor will now be detected as monitor 1 and the DVI will be detected as Monitor 2. This is the same on Windows 7.

When editing the display configuration settings, selecting the DVI Monitor (#2), and making it the default monitor will trigger this symptom. After a reboot the boot menu is intact, but it will not be visible. The monitor is getting a signal, but remains black.

If you change the default monitor back to the HDMI connected monitor (#1), the boot menu will display as expected.

So far the only workaround I have is to swap the HDMI/DVI cables around. Which is not optimal as HDMI is reportedly better for video and DVI better for gaming (Opinion from several other forums).

If I find a solution where I can keep my monitor connections as they were I will update this post.

* Graphics card: The problem occurs on different video cards (I also tested a GTX 650).
** This isn't an issue with Windows 7 text based boot menu, which works fine on any monitor combination. It only affects windows 10's GUI boot menu.