Boot\bcd error, /fixboot dosent work

[Darsiant]

You've probably had a bunch of people with this same error, however even after looking throgh possibly hundreds of websites, I have still yet to solve it. It's the old windows failed to start because boot\bcd is corrupt please insert the recovery disk. That's what I did and went throgh startup repair with no sucess,then I tried "bootrec /fix mbr" which responded "operation completed sucessfully" then and "bootrec /fix boot" which responded "element not found" then finally "bootrec /rebuild bcd" which again responded "element not found". Also when I go into the recovery cd, my os is not listed on the list of os's to repair. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that it can't find boot\bcd at All, how would I go about getting it back? Help greatly appreciated!!

 

[Jonathan_King]

Hello, Welcome!

Looks like somehow your drive is not Active. Please follow my instructions in this post on how to mark the drive as active.

Hope this helps,
~Jonathan

 

[Minotar]

How did you lose it?

I take it you have another OS on the same hard drive?Or on a one of the other 2 Hd's?
If so did you recently install a different OS?

 

[Darsiant]

Hello, Welcome!

Looks like somehow your drive is not Active. Please follow my instructions in this post on how to mark the drive as active.

Hope this helps,
~Jonathan

Thanks for the quick response, but it didn't work ,
same error.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Did you run Startup Repair 3 after marking the drive as active?

 

[iseeuu]

You've probably had a bunch of people with this same error, however even after looking throgh possibly hundreds of websites, I have still yet to solve it. It's the old windows failed to start because boot\bcd is corrupt please insert the recovery disk. That's what I did and went throgh startup repair with no sucess,then I tried "bootrec /fix mbr" which responded "operation completed sucessfully" then and "bootrec /fix boot" which responded "element not found" then finally "bootrec /rebuild bcd" which again responded "element not found". Also when I go into the recovery cd, my os is not listed on the list of os's to repair. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that it can't find boot\bcd at All, how would I go about getting it back? Help greatly appreciated!!

Did you see this tutorial?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

Cheers!
Robert

 

[Darsiant]

How did you lose it?

I take it you have another OS on the same hard drive?Or on a one of the other 2 Hd's?
If so did you recently install a different OS?

actually i did install ubuntu on the 40 gb, however I was unable to boot into windows 7, It went straight to ubuntu. I know that ubuntu uses grub2 as the bootloader because it supports multiple operating systems. I tried every thing to make grub show windows 7 as a choice during startup, but I eventually gave up and wiped the 40gb drive using gparted in the ubuntu live cd. I kept getting "grub loading" so I tried clearing the mbr using partition wizard from a bootable cd. I think that worked but now I'm getting the boot\bcd error.

 

[Darsiant]

You've probably had a bunch of people with this same error, however even after looking throgh possibly hundreds of websites, I have still yet to solve it. It's the old windows failed to start because boot\bcd is corrupt please insert the recovery disk. That's what I did and went throgh startup repair with no sucess,then I tried "bootrec /fix mbr" which responded "operation completed sucessfully" then and "bootrec /fix boot" which responded "element not found" then finally "bootrec /rebuild bcd" which again responded "element not found". Also when I go into the recovery cd, my os is not listed on the list of os's to repair. I'm not sure, but it seems to me that it can't find boot\bcd at All, how would I go about getting it back? Help greatly appreciated!!

Did you see this tutorial?

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

Cheers!
Robert

I did try running that, it didn't work, so iused partition wizard to restore the mbr, but it stil goes to the bcd error

 

[Darsiant]

Did you run Startup Repair 3 after marking the drive as active?

Thanks for the welcome!
I ran startup repair before and after the make active command, both times saying that nothing could be done.

 

[Jonathan_King]

Let me get this straight: you boot into the Repair Disc and it finds the installation?

 

[Darsiant]

Let me get this straight: you boot into the Repair Disc and it finds the installation?

No, I go to repair instalation but it dosent show any os's in the list, however it still let's me go into the recovery options (startup recovery, command prompt, etc.) without selecting an os

 

[Jonathan_King]

I must confess I am stumped. I have never before seen a case in which marking the partition as active, then running Startup Repair 3 times did not work. Hang on, I will send out a call to our experts. Stand by!

 

[Darsiant]

I must confess I am stumped. I have never before seen a case in which marking the partition as active, then running Startup Repair 3 times did not work. Hang on, I will send out a call to our experts. Stand by!

Thank you for the help. I just thought that I'd add that the results of the startup repair say "root cause found, partition table is corrupt on disk \device\harddisk0."

 

[Jonathan_King]

Thanks, that helps a lot. Let me get back to you.

 

[DocBrown]

Which of the 3 Hd's did you install Win7 on ? What was the first OS on harddisk0 ?

 

[Jonathan_King]

Could you try running bootrec.exe /FixMBR again?

 

[Darsiant]

Could you try running bootrec.exe /FixMBR again?

Tried it, restarted, same error.

 

[gregrocker]

Be aware the GRUB-corrupted Win7 MBR's are nearly impossible to recover if any remnants of GRUB remain.

Please unplug all other drives but Win7.

Boot into Win7 DVD and click through to recovery tools to run Startup Repair 3 separate times.

It must first attempt to repair the MBR and then rewrite it to Win7. It assumes each fix given will work until you return for another.

All bootrec and bootsect commands are now automated in Win7 Startup Repair, the exception being if no installation is found to repair. Bootrec/bootsect can then trigger discovery.

You say that you used Partition Wizard to restore the MBR. Which exact feature of PW did you use and how?

 

[Darsiant]

Which of the 3 Hd's did you install Win7 on ? What was the first OS on harddisk0 ?

Sorry I forgot to mention that. Windows 7 is installed on a partition that spans the entire 115 gb drive. Ubuntu was installed on the40gb disk before I wiped it. The 500gb is just for storage.

 

[DocBrown]

Which of the 3 Hd's did you install Win7 on ? What was the first OS on harddisk0 ?

Sorry I forgot to mention that. Windows 7 is installed on a partition that spans the entire 115 gb drive. Ubuntu was installed on the40gb disk before I wiped it. The 500gb is just for storage.

If the 115 is harddrive0, then you should do exactly as gregrocker says above.