I had the same symptoms as in the quotes and I also got an error when running:
bcdboot c:\windows
In some cases you need to copy the files to the hidden system partition, which does not have a drive letter by default.
So, find that partition and assign it a drive letter using:
diskpart
list disk
select disk # (select the Windows drive)
list volume
selection volume # (select the System volume)
assign letter=z
exit
Now you can run bcdboot against the system volume:
bcdboot c:\windows /s z: /f ALL
Hope that helps someone from having to dive as far as I did!