New
#1
Windows 7 MBR Recovery and Re-deployment
tl;dr:
"I would like to know if there is a way to back up the Windows 7 bootmgr in it's entirety (both what resides on the MBR and the needed files within my Windows 7 partition) and re-deploy them."
I would like to multi-boot Windows 7, Slackware (a Linux distro), a WIM installer for Windows (accessible via EasyBCD), and a floppy image installer for Slackware (also accessible via EasyBCD.)
I currently have this working, and a basic outline of my partition layout follows:
Disk 1
-MBR: Windows 7 bootmgr
-Partition 1: Windows 7
-Partition 2: Windows Installer WIM and Sources
Disk 2
-Partition 1: LILO and Slackware
-Partition 2: Swap Partition
-Partition 3: Personal Data Files
-Partition 4: Slackware Installer
Windows does some things while partitioning that I don't like (including seeing 500 MB less on my disc than is there, leaving unused space in the table which was odd to see.) I plan to use a utility on my Slackware installation to rectify that, but once I delete my Windows 7 partition I will have no way to reinstall Windows (as I will lose the MBR data pointing to the WIM installer.) I've been using Windows for about six months, but haven't used Slackware in almost a year and am not ready to dive back into it without a backup OS.
Suffice it to say I don't have media to make installation discs or usb sticks. (Since I know it seems like I'm trying to crack a wallnut with a sledgehammer. Or rather, use a sledgehammer to crack a walnut as use a sledgehammer to knock down a tree to fall on a house to collapse and cause a minor earth tremor to cause a rock balanced on a candle to fall off and land on a walnut...cracking it.)