Destroyed BCD with Linux Mint

[brianzion]

im wondering if you can partition the 100Mb again and import the boot file we need some help here i will email another guru if you could get the recovery disc to work it would be easier i have asked for brinks advice ok, watch this space.

 

[TommyW126]

I got the Recovery CD from neosmart.net working (via USB)!

 

[brianzion]

great have you fixed the MBR?

 

[TommyW126]

No, I do not know how.

 

[brianzion]

so when you boot from the usb whats windows giving you in the way of options is these in the screenshot?

 

[brianzion]

Click on "Repair Your Computer" to gain access to the System Recovery window. Now choose "Command Prompt" in order to run the desired utility which is called "bootsect.exe". Bootsect is located inside the boot folder so change your directory to boot. Now run "bootsect /nt60 C:\" if you had Win 7 initially installed in the C partition. Alternatively, you can run "bootsect /nt60 SYS" or "bootsect /nt60 ALL" to repair the system partition or all partitions. Eject the thumb drive and restart computer. Your computer should now boot Win 7 again.

link to help here :ar: How to repair MBR on Windows 7 | eHow.com

WARNING Enter "bootsect /nt60 C:/" without the quotes!

 

[TommyW126]

Unfortunately that did not change anything.

 

[theog]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

 

[brianzion]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html?ltr=S
Note: You may need to do startup repair 3 to 4 times.
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

great advice from theog

 

[TommyW126]

Yes, I tried that multiple times. But it did not help. I suppose I bugged something with changing the active partition earlier. I do not even know which one has to be active: C:\Windows or the 100mb "system-reserved" partition. And should I be able to see the 100mb partition in diskpart and have a drive letter assigned to it or not?

 

[brianzion]

here is another option to try SystemRescueCd

Description:
SystemRescueCd is a Linux system rescue disk available as a bootable CD-ROM or USB stick for administrating or repairing your system and data after a crash. It aims to provide an easy way to carry out admin tasks on your computer, such as creating and editing the hard disk partitions. It comes with a lot of linux software such as system tools (parted, partimage, fstools, ...) and basic tools (editors, midnight commander, network tools). It requires no installation. It can be used on linux servers, linux desktops or windows boxes. The kernel supports the important file systems (ext2/ext3/ext4, reiserfs, reiser4, btrfs, xfs, jfs, vfat, ntfs, iso9660), as well as network filesystems (samba and nfs).

LINK :ar: SystemRescueCd

 

[brianzion]

can you not reinstall linux on the hard drive with windows? and let the grub get the drive bootable then repair windows ? when you have a ubuntu distro installed you could download startup manager for ubuntu and you can change the boot order

https://help.ubuntu.com/community/StartUpManager

download :ar: StartUp-Manager | Download StartUp-Manager software for free at SourceForge.net

StartUp-Manager is a free open-source GUI tool to manage settings for Grub (Grub Legacy), Grub 2, Usplash and Splashy. It provides a menu-driven interface which allows the user to set boot menu options such as the default operating system, menu timeouts and displays, password protection and much more. StartUp-Manager accomplishes this by translating the user's GUI inputs into bootloader settings without the need to manually edit the bootloader file (in Ubuntu, normally /boot/grub/menu.lst).

 

[brianzion]

don't forget MBRWizard i posted in post 8 that's a option to look at.

 

[TommyW126]

I tried startupmanager, but it says:

mint@mint ~ $ sudo startupmanager
xrandr: Failed to get size of gamma for output default
/usr/sbin/grub-probe: error: cannot find a device for / (is /dev mounted?).
Grub2 detected
Usplash not detected
Splashy not detected
File /boot/grub/grub.cfg does not exist.

I will try reinstalling Mint to the external HDD, as there is nothing to lose on that (There was only Mint on it before, nothing else).

 

[brianzion]

okey dokey i might not be able to reply to often im working in office, but you are trying the options well done

 

[TommyW126]

That does not work. Linux Mint does not start from (external) HDD. Only the "live" version via USB-stick. I even tried repartitioning and reformatting the (external) HDD. There must be something on the (internal) Win7 HDD, which prevents Mint from booting, I suppose.

 

[severedsolo]

Here's an idea, if you don't mind losing mint (you said there was nothing to lose right?)

It seems to me that Windows isn't booting because it can't find the BCD, so what about if we force Windows to create a new one.

If you can get into Mint using the Live USB, then use GParted to create a new (small, 25-30GB or so) empty partition. WHile your here, if you can see your 100MB system partition, then delete that as well.
Install Windows onto the new partition, and allow it to create a new MBR and BCD. (100MB partition etc.)
Once you have access to the new install use EasyBCD to add the old Windows Install to the boot menu.
Remove the new Windows install from the bootmenu and delete the partition,
Reinstall Mint.

It's a long assed way to do it, but it might just work.

 

[TommyW126]

Good idea, but my max. USB-Stick is 4gb and there is no way to put the Win7-CD on it. The 8GB-Stick I used to install Win7 from broke!

Edit: Ok, Win7-DVD-Image is 3.0 GB. Just gotta figure out, how to get it on USB and bootable in LM10.

 

[TommyW126]

Woohoo. Finally I got my Win7 back.
Here is the solution: I put Win7-DVD on the 4GB-USB-Stick and started the installation (unfortunately to a wrong partition, because there was too less free space on C: and I did not want to erase that for obvious reasons). After the first installation step (copying files) I let it "extracting files" a little bit, then just hit the reset key. Then I used the USB-Stick to start recovery and now it found the OLD Win7 installation on drive E:. Obviously the drive letters were changed due to the new installation of Win7 was on E: and I suppose it made itself C:.
So I let startuprepair repair everything automatically and rebooted without USB-Stick and Win7 (old) was there again. This time on drive C:.

Remaining problems:
1) I have to specify the 120GB HDD as first boot device in bios, although the Win7 partition is on the 80GB HDD. If I use the 80GB HDD as first device, (broken) Grub is loaded.
2) The formerly hidden 100MB partition is now drive H: on my Desktop. I want it to be like it was before. I suppose the bootmgr should be on that, but I do not know what Win7 created that partition for.

How do I solve those 2 problems?

 

[brianzion]

go in to windows msconfig (type it in start menu,click on it in result, go to boot tab click on it and look at the settings. remove linux if you want but remember you cant boot into it after if i remember correctly.