Win7 boot MBR lost after removing non OS hdd

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kinsten

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#95466 5-Jan-2012 10:05

OK, so I have a pc with 3 HDD's
I am running only a single OS Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit.

I swapped the 500gb HDD for a 3TB HDD (I was naughty and did this while Windows was running)
These are NOT the Win7 Operating System Drive.

I have 2x 160GB HDD's
one of these is the Win7 OS HDD, the other is just a storage drive where I keep work.

I have had the built in Win7 Backup manager recording images of the 2 160GB drives onto the 3TB drive.
My last backup was 27/12/2011 (this might have been the day I unplugged the 500gb drive).

--------
Due to earthquakes etc in Chch, we had a power cut yesterday morning, and my UPS is obviously poked.
So my computer restarted, and now windows wont load.

What I have Done
I have done a Chkdisk on the OS drive, and that came back fine.
Also made the OS drive the 'Active' partition using diskpart
then tried rebuilding the MBR using bootrec commands.

No matter what I do, I cannot get the drive to boot.

What I think the problem is
After spending hours last night trying to sort this out.
I am pretty certain the 500GB hdd was where the MBR was located. It is the only thing I can think is the problem.
I don't want to put the 500GB hdd back into my computer, I want it for external use to transfer files around.

Is there a way I can rebuild the MBR on my hdd, and make windows load from the OS drive?
This is literally driving me nuts... =/

Whats Next
I am about to use GParted, but not 100% certain if its going to work or not.
Has anyone come across this before? Will it work?

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
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dukester

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#564671 5-Jan-2012 10:37

You could try booting off the windows CD and choose the repair option.

Dratsab

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#564672 5-Jan-2012 10:39

Sounds more like you've lost your Boot Configuration Data (BCD). You can rebuild this with a repair disk.

I had a similar sort of problem to this last year. A drive im my laptop failed - a different drive to which the OS was on, but the BCD was on it. I built up a repair disk from another computer in the house and had my laptop up and running again pretty quickly.

This may help: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

kinsten

240 posts

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#564700 5-Jan-2012 11:11

Yea BCD sounds about right.
But for some unknown reason its not letting me rebuild it.
Going to try Method 3 here
http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927391

Also, not quite sure, but if I load DiskPart should the disk/partition I made active previously, show after restarting?
Cos its not at all. As if no disks are active.

And when I load the win7 boot dvd, no operating systems appear.

Gah, such a mission, and a friend of mine is having a similar problem in OZ. So once I figure mine out, hopefully I can help them also *sigh*.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
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Oblivian

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#564721 5-Jan-2012 11:53

You can have a boot sector on 1 drive, booting from another.. as strange as it sounds (more common with newer BIOS that allow botting from HD* as long has 'hard drive' is selected in boot order) as the bootsec config file simply looks for driveX/PartitionX/ for the windows loader.

Chances are its been removed along with the other drive, and you will need to re-add one to the primary OS drive, and reconfigure the boot menu as stated.

You can do it from a Vista boot CD also, both use BOOTMGR instead of NTLDR.

New versions of Hirens (more legit from v14) have utils to mess with bootsectors and menus within a PE OS.

Alternate if you are brave is to GRUB the main drive, and add the chainloader for bootmgr from there.

kinsten

240 posts

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#564806 5-Jan-2012 14:14

OK working now.

Did not even get to using other boot loaders or anything.
I did something someone suggested in a forum somewhere.

Start a new Install of Windows onto the same drive. let it finish the copying files to hdd
Then cancel the install.
Reboot and load DVD Installer again, then reload a previous restore point.
Then I rebooted and loaded the DVD again, using the auto repair startup option

After doing the repair startup twice, everything is working.

Yay!

and holy cow, that was just annoying.

Intel Core 2 Duo E6600, 4x 2GB Adata 1066+ DDR2, Sapphire HD4850 X2 2GB GDDR3 PCI-E Quad DVI, 1000w PSU & over 4TB HDD space, Windows 7 Ultimate 64bit
PS3 Slim