Hard drive will not boot

In an attempt to wipe an old laptop hard drive, I think I may have deleted or corrupted the Master Boot Record.

I performed several tasks, mostly ignorant of what I was actually doing. It appeared I was able to successfully re-partitioned and reformatted the hard drive. However, after loading an image file, the PC would not boot into Windows.

I ran a "Primary hard disk self test" and got the following message "Test status: #1 - 04 Fail"

Using another working PC, here is what it looks like in Disk Management



and here is what it looks like in Windows Explorer



The image files look OK, but there are a few things that are troubling. For example, what is on Drive G? Drive G is actually Drive C when it's placed in the laptop and Windows is on Drive D, which in this picture is Drive L.

I tried to see if I could change the boot order to load from Drive D, but I can't.

I also tried to "repair" the MBR using the Bootrec commands, with no luck.

I'm pretty sure the answer will be pretty obvious to someone who has a good understanding of Master Boot Records, partitioning, volumes, etc.

Many thanks

Senator said:

For example, what is on Drive G? Drive G is actually Drive C when it's placed in the laptop and Windows is on Drive D, which in this picture is Drive L.

Drive G is a System Reserved partition that contains boot files.

Are you POSITIVE that "Drive G is actually Drive C when it's placed in the laptop and Windows is on Drive D, which in this picture is Drive L"???

System Reserved normally would not have a drive letter at all. It's found in a typical install.

Windows would normally be on C, not D.

What application made this image you refer to?

Is this an image of this very same laptop drive, before you wiped it?

ignatzatsonic said:

Are you POSITIVE that "Drive G is actually Drive C when it's placed in the laptop and Windows is on Drive D, which in this picture is Drive L"???

Yes, quite sure. I verified this using the Command prompt.

What application made this image you refer to?

The Windows 7 Control Panel / Backup.... feature

Is this an image of this very same laptop drive, before you wiped it?

Yes it is.

SIW2 said:

What does "loading an image file" mean?

I had an internal 100GB hard drive running Windows 7. I created an image backup and placed it on an external hard drive. Then took out internal (100GB) hard drive and inserted a third drive (320GB) that had XP on it. Then used a Repair disc I created to load the image (from the external hard drive) onto the internal 320GB drive (Drive C).

SIW2 said:

How far do you get when you try and boot windows? Any messages?

The image installs successfully, it automatically reboots and then I get a black screen that says words to the effect (I can recall exactly and I have no way of capturing the screen) Windows cannot boot properly and I think something about the MBR.