“No boot device found” & accidentally deleted Reserved Partition

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Background information

My laptop is a Toshiba Satellite L50-B with Intel Core i7 and AMD Radeon R7 M260. It came with Windows 8 pre-installed when I first bought it, but I soon wiped the disk to install Windows 7 instead. I also installed Ubuntu on a separate partition so I could dual boot. So the GRUB bootloader replaced the MBR. This isn't the issue though, just want to inform the laptop is running in CSM mode(or legacy) instead of UEFI.
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First of all, before you assume, the hard drive is working perfectly. I can still boot to Windows and it works fine. More on this at the end.

Now the issue is, I removed the Ubuntu partition, and I've really no idea what I did wrong with restoring/fixing the MBR. Now, whenever I try to boot, it displays "No boot device found". I've tried:

- Windows Recovery
- Windows Recovery using disk
- Parted Magic (Hiren's BootCD)

Mainly, I tried to restore and fix the MBR using bootsect and bootrec (fixmbr, fixboot and rebuildbcd). Also automated repair using the recovery.

As I mentioned above, I don't think it's a problem with the hard drive, since I'm posting this very question from this problematic laptop, on the main Windows installation.

I can still boot into windows, but only using either:

- Windows recovery disk (without booting into the disk, just have it in
the drive when booting)
- Hiren's BootCD Boot Manager

I've no idea how to proceed further with this. I think the last resort would be be to completely format the hard drive and install a new Windows.

Please, if anyone has any idea, at all, on how to solve this stupid problem, I'd appreciate it very much.

Thank you.

UPDATE
So by using GParted, I can clearly see the hard drive, only that it is unallocated. What the hell? I can still boot into Windows 7 and access my files with no problem. And Disk Management in Windows shows it correctly as one partition. What's going on?

Thanks Lance1,

Oh wow, I didn't know that actually existed. If I read it correctly, in order to Repair Install, I would need more free space than the currently used disk space? My system is currently using around 800GB, so I'd need more than 800GB of free space to perform Repair Install?

Here's the screenshot from Disk Management:

AddRAM said:

Never a good idea to dual boot windows and Linux, problems, problems, problems. Installed on Separate drives while each is unplugged is fine, other then that dual booting is more trouble then it`s worth.

Did you mark your windows partition Active and run startup repair yet ?

Create a Partition Wizard Boot CD, boot from it, use a camera and take a clear full shot, upload the picture, we`ll take a look and go from there.

Bootable Partition Manager| MiniTool Partition Wizard Bootable Edition

I actually didn't know that. From the various tutorial I've read, none of them discouraged dual-booting Windows and Linux. None of them warned of any potential problem one may encounter with dual-booting.

I have marked my Windows partition active and have ran startup repair...

And here are a few screenshots from Partition Wizard, sorry it isn't very clear:





I ran a quick scan using the Partition Recovery Wizard, and it actually found a deleted partition. I'm not sure if I should proceed or not (in fear of losing data/Windows installation)



Thanks...

bigmck said:

Your Disk Management looks OK. You made the statement in your post == "I have marked my Windows partition active and have ran startup repair.." == Was it not marked active before you started this thread? If it wasn't, it should boot OK now. Have your tried it? == Just a suggestion, You have all of your files on one partition, C:. If you ever have to reinstall Windows, you will have to reinstall all of your other files also. That would be a job. When you get this problem corrected, you should consider making a D: partition on your HD. Have C: for Windows 7 and your Programs. Have D: for docurments, pictures, anything else. Make your Windows about 100 GB, bigger if you have a lot of Programs. == Let us know if your PC boots now.

Oh no sorry, must've worded that wrong, that was done and out of the way much earlier. It was never inactive anyways and startup repair didn't do anything.

Thank you for the suggestion, I'll keep in mind when I'm doing a clean install in the future.

I just want to inform I'll be away, thus not be able to check this thread until next week. It's Eid, and in Malaysia, we all 'Balik Kampung'.

Please, if anyone have any solutions at all to my problem, share your ideas in this thread.

Thank you!