New
#1
Windows 7 won't boot after removing a hard drive.
Background:
I just finished putting together my new PC. Intel Core i5, nice video card, etc (I'll throw all the specs up later, I don't have them nearby). It was running great. Not a single problem. I had two hard drives installed, a 1TB and a 750GB. The 750GB was carried over from my previous build as it is my data drive (movies, music, documents, etc). My OS installed lives on the 1TB. I remember looking at the disk management console and seeing the 750 as disk 0 and the 1TB (OS) as disk 1. I thought that was a little strange, but it was working with no problems so I let it go.
I have a small Dell server, PowerEdge T100, which I decided to put to use as a media server for the Xbox or PS3 (Running Tversity - Free version, works great). I decided to pull the 750GB drive from my PC and place it in the server since that's where I'll be storing a bulk of the media moving forward. Installed it, powered on, assigned a drive letter, all is well.
I attempted to boot my PC, which now only has the OS drive, and nothing. The BIOS tells me to insert boot media. I checked the startup settings, the drive was set as the first boot device. Tried again. Nothing.
What I've done so far:
-Changed the SATA ports, it was originally in port 5, tried port 4, put back in port 5.
-Booted to Win7 DVD
-Attempted recovery mode
-Could not detect my OS
-Opened a command prompt window
-Able to Cd to C:\, all files look normal.
-Ran bcdedit commands
It almost seems to me like the boot record was placed on the data drive rather than the OS drive. I would assume I need to recreate the MBR on the OS drive, but I've been unsuccessful so far.
If need be I can place the data drive back in the PC and I would assume it would boot fine. I'd prefer to avoid doing that because then I'm just back where I was. I'd also like to avoid doing a clean install because I work in IT and I'd like to actually figure out a solution, but if it comes down to it, so be it.
Thanks in advance. I'll post more specifics and try out any possible solutions when I get home from work tonight.