/fixMBR doesn't really fix the MBR

I ran into the issue of moving data off an IDE HD that has XP on it. I plugged it into my computer and after the mboard splash screen, there was a quick flash of a blue screen error and it restarted.

I shutdown the computer to unplug the IDE HD and booted from my SATA HD that has windows 7 on it. I found out that I had left my windows repair disk in my rom and it booted up from that, rather than bybassing it and booting up windows 7. I knew by then the MBR was gone. (When I added the IDE HD with XP on it, that meant my comp. had 2 conflicting boot loaders and that canceled the win7 one out.)

I tried bootrec.exe/fixMBR and bootrec.exe/fixBoot. Neither worked; the fixMBR says it worked sucessfully but I keep booting back to the repair disk. The fixboot says element not found. I used bootrer.exe/RebuildBCD too but that doesn't work because it then says element not found after inputting Y to repair. I already went through the tutorial here for repairing the mbr and it didn't fix anything, just gave me information about the bootsect.exe and to type bootsec/help for more info.

I have a cd-bootable ubuntu ready in case I need to move files for reformatting. Though I'd really like to just take the easy way out and not do that, heh.

-Captain Jack, I did follow that thread first and did everything. At the end of it though, it told me more about what the bootsect does and how to use it, rather than actually solving anything like what was shown in the thread. That is, unless I missed a step.

-jelyman, I did boot without the disk and it said something like "No OS, insert system disk." Nothing was removed from the windows 7 HD. All the files are still there.

Maybe I should mention that a couple months back I tried to dual boot Linux and that didn't work out too well. Ended up rolling back to a system image.

It is incorrect that the Win7 MBR was "canceled out" when you plugged in the XP HD. It likely bluescreened if set first to boot because XP needs a Repair Install from boot to run on new hardware. http://pcsupport.about.com/od/operat...txprepair1.htm Otherwise it should have been accessible as a data drive.

The HD's act independently so that if you repair XP it will boot on its own without affecting Win7 with dual-booting achieved via BIOS Boot Order or one-time BIOS Boot menu. This is actually a better way to configure a dual boot with separate HD's as it keeps them independent.

To repair Win7 remove all other HD's and peripherals, boot the Repair CD or DVD, access a Command line to Mark Win7 active using Diskpart commands given here: Partition - Mark as Active

Close Command line, continue booting into Repair CD or DVD Repair console, access Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots until Win7 starts: Startup Repair - Run 3 Separate Times

All of the necessary commands to repair and start Win7 are automated in Startup Repair but it has to be run enough times to cover everything. If the repairs already attempted have not compounded the problems then it should sort it out and start Win7 within three attempts.

If not you copy out your files using the CD/DVD following these steps: Copy & Paste - in Windows Recovery Console

Then wipe the HD due to possibility of infection or corrupt code and clean reinstall following these tips to get a purrfect install, based on hundreds done here: re-install windows 7

I was able to get the partition marked active. I booted it up again to confirm a different error message and sure enough, it said "bootmgr is missing press crtl alt del to restart." I was very happy to see that and not "OS not found."

After that, I restarted, got into the system disk, and before I could get to the recovery console, I got a message saying something like "attempt repairs and restart?" with repair and restart or no.

Being the person I am, I clicked no the first time, and ran system repair. I got a message saying that system repair could not fix the drive with 2 options (send information about this ((recommended)) or don't send). I hit recommended and rebooted and did the attempt repair and restart option.

That made my drive recognizable for the system repair to fix. Amazingly enough, I only had to hit system repair once for it to fully boot windows 7.

Thank you all so much for replying to this thread. Greg, I wish I could give you a hug, lol. I ran into this situation 4 times in my life and all were resolved by restoring or reformatting. I'm really happy to know what to do now. Thanks again!

Glad it helped.

For some reason if DVD/CD Repair offers a repair upfront you have to take it or Startup Repair won't go back and offer it unless you reboot to start over.

However once you accept the offered repair if it fails to start up then rebooting DVD/CD to run Startup Repair up to three more reboots will often get it started, depending upon how complicated the problems it needs to test and attempt fixes for.

Will try to remember to include "accept offered repair..." in the future as it tends to get left out when typing out the steps if they start to sound too complicated.