Need help - MBR Error 1 on boot - Windows 7 (32-bit)/XP SP3 dual boot

I have a laptop I bought a year ago on which a created a dual boot Win 7 (32bit)/Win XP SP3 install, each on a separate partition. It was my first Win 7/XP dual boot install, and my first personal system that I allowed to have a Win 7 install on it at all, so although I have plenty of experience working on pretty much every previous version of Windows, I have very little experience with Win 7 and dual boot configs.

Today about 2 hours ago my audio spontaneously stopped worked for no good reason, so after shutting down each program to see if that cured it (which it didn't), I restarted the system. Out of the blue, for the first time I've ever experienced it, I received the msg "MBR Error 1" - Press any key to boot from floppy. I don't have a floppy of course on my laptop, and if I press any key I simply get the same msg. I turned the system off for a few minutes to make sure it was a good cold boot, but every time I still get the same msg. I tried switching the BIOS setting from IDE to AHCI (IDE is required for XP to boot, AHCI required for Win 7), but I still get the same error msg before I'm even prompted with the OS boot selection, so it made no difference of course.

I looked up this issue and found various suggestions, but none of the ones I found took into consideration a dual boot config., they were all Win 7 specific solutions. I don't what to try and repair the MBR only to have it screw up my dual boot config and be unable to access XP, which is what I use almost exclusively, nor do i want to lose access to Win 7 if at all possible.

I had a backup HD of my complete system that I saved several months ago when I upgraded my HD, and I periodically refresh the most important files on it, so I'm currently running on the laptop in question using my old HD, and it's working just fine. Worst case I can just clone my old HD to my newer HD that's screwed up, but I'll still lose a lot of changes I've made to the OS since I upgraded the HD and have to reinstall and config a number of programs, so that's my last option. I'll also have to back up about 200GB of data from the newer HD which is much larger than my old HD, and then restore it back after the clone, something that will take a lot of time and unncessary effort if I can just fix the MBR.

I have a Windows XP Recovery Console CD and a Windows 7 Recovery CD, so I should have what I need to effect the fix, but because of the dual boot situation I need some guidance from someone that's experienced with this specific problem and the dual boot configuration.

TIA!

Ztruker said:

I would say follow the Windows 7 fix. Once that works you can then fix, if necessary, any XP problem.

Why I suggest doing it this way is the computer must have come with Windows 7 and you added XP, right? So fixing Windows 7 is the place to start.

Here is one way to fix this:

MBR Error 1 on startup

That is correct it came with Win 7 and I partitioned the drive, added XP and the dual boot. Thanks for your suggestion and the link, and if anybody else has any advice feel free to chime in as well.

Well after some difficulty getting the system to boot from the cd drive, I finally got the Recovery Console loaded and refreshed the MBR. When I rebooted I finally got the usual dual boot OS option, but when I got about halfway through the xp boot Windows blue screened. Couldn't get into win 7 either. Tried safe mode of course too.

Looks like whatever spontaneously happened that caused the mbr issue, that wasn't the limit of the damage/corruption. I've been pulling data off of the drive all night so it doesn't appear too be a hardware failure. Looks like I'm stuck pulling all the newer data off and cloning from my backup drive.

Boot into Win7 System Recovery Options or Windows 7 System Repair Disk to Mark Win7 Partition Active.

Then run Startup Repair - Run up to 3 Separate Times until Windows 7 starts and it's boot partition holds the System Active flags.

Once Win7 starts, install EasyBCD (click Download - no Name or Email required) to add XP on the it's Add OS Entry tab.

If the above doesn't work you may be infected and Win7 often won't repair until disinfected. Work throught these steps for Troubleshooting Windows 7 Failure to Start