Can no longer boot into Windows

[infested999]

This is probably the wrong section, but there is no "Hard Drive" section and this does kind of have to do with OS Set-up.

My set-up as of this mourning was this.

-350GB IDE (Windows 7 installed here, main OS)
-500GB SATA (Used for storage)
-1.5TB SATA (I got this one because my 500GB was full and I needed even more storage)

This set-up is working fine for about half of a year now. But today I wanted to make a change, I decided to move all the stuff form the 500GB over to the 1.5TB since then I can get a empty drive for installing Ubuntu, and in the 1.5TB, space is not a problem.

I open up GParted LiveCD and delete the 500GB Drive so I now have 500GB of allocated space. Then I go to boot back to Windows 7 and I get the error "NO BOOT DEVICE Please insert boot device adn restart"!

Now I wanted to make sure that all my parts are still good so I loaded up Ubuntu LiveCD and looked at all my drives. I still see the 350GB, I can browse throu the Program Files folder, see all of m main OS files in the file browser here, they are all still there. The 500GB is there but I obviously can't see the files in it becaues it is all unallocated space.

But for some reason Windows Refuses to boot without having my extra 500GB of storage files. I am SURE that there are no important system files in this drive, becaues I looked at it before I deleted the main partition, all thre was were some Hidden Files/Folder, there was a folder called "$RECYCLE$BIN$" (or something like that) and it was 3.7GB but I thought it diddnt matter so I just formatted that away.

Now apperantly these few files are so important to windows that they are required to boot :sarc:

I should note that when I am in device manager while Windows still worked, I would see that both C: AND F: are both "System Disks" that cannot be formatted wile Windows is running! But there are no system files on F:

It may be that i used to have XP installed on the 500GB 3 years ago, but not that I remember.

 

[IggyAZ]

This is what I would do if it was my system.
I would uplug all the HD's except the 350 Gig and try doing a repair with the Win7 DVD.
The reason I would unplug all the other drives for now is that way I would next get Windows mixed up on what drive to check or make bootable. Also so I wouldn't accidently format the wrong HD. LOL which I have done once before. Not a happy camper.

That is my 2 cents .

 

[infested999]

This is what I would do if it was my system.
I would uplug all the HD's except the 350 Gig and try doing a repair with the Win7 DVD.
The reason I would unplug all the other drives for now is that way I would next get Windows mixed up on what drive to check or make bootable. Also so I wouldn't accidently format the wrong HD. LOL which I have done once before. Not a happy camper.

That is my 2 cents .

Yea I'm probably going to try this.

and I am SURE that I didn't format the wrong HDD by accident, because I can see my old C: drive here from ubuntu live CD

 

[infested999]

Alright I have put the Win7 Install DVD into the drive and launched start-up repair. The start-up repair says that it has repaired it and I look at the log file and I see something like this:

Problem: Partition Table does not include windows installation

This problem has been solved

I try to boot up again and it's still the same exact problem. I cannot do system restore because it cant find windows. While I was repairing windows i was able to get open a file browser and then I was browsing my D: drive and I saw my "Program Files" foldr and everything in the file browser, it's all there.

Until I get this solved, I am just going to try to make a good install of Ubuntu 9.10 on my 500GB...

 

[whs]

Do you have an MBR on that drive? When you say " I moved all the stuff" - how did you do that?

 

[infested999]

Do you have an MBR on that drive? When you say " I moved all the stuff" - how did you do that?

I think I have a MBR on my 350GB because I have been using Windows for about a year now on that drive and it booted up perfectly until then.

To move the stuff I used a program called "TeraCopy" and just dragged all the files over in windows explorer.

 

[whs]

If you originally did an upgrade from XP ( which was on the 500GB drive ), it is very possible that the MBR was all along on that drive.

 

[gregrocker]

Apparently your MBR is still on the 500mb HD, or Win7 would start without it.

Unplug it and boot the Win7 DVD Repair console, or Repair Cd. Click through to Recovery Tools list to open a Command Line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (replace # with Win7 HD)
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION # (for Win7 partition)
ACTIVE
EXIT

now return to Recov Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots as it will attempt to repair and then write the MBR to Win7 partition.

 

[whs]

Thanks Greg for picking it up from there. I am not 100% sure footed on how to repair those MBR's (although I read all you relevant postings). I never had to do that because I take great care not to paint myself into that corner.

 

[infested999]

Thanks Greg for picking it up from there. I am not 100% sure footed on how to repair those MBR's (although I read all you relevant postings). I never had to do that because I take great care not to paint myself into that corner.

Well, most people wouldn't think that any important part of Windows is stored in there extra space drive...

Apparently your MBR is still on the 500mb HD, or Win7 would start without it.

Unplug it and boot the Win7 DVD Repair console, or Repair Cd. Click through to Recovery Tools list to open a Command Line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (replace # with Win7 HD)
LIST PARTITION
SELECT PARTITION # (for Win7 partition)
ACTIVE
EXIT

now return to Recov Tools list to run Start-up Repair up to 3 separate times with reboots as it will attempt to repair and then write the MBR to Win7 partition.

All right just did all this.

When I boot up with only my Windows drive plugged in, then it will says "GRUB Loading" even though there is no trace of Linux on this hard drive, my Linux drive is unplugged! Somehow when I installed Linux it managed to get it's MBR installed on ALL of my hard drive and/or hard-coded into my BIOS

This time when I started Windows recovery tool it says "Please select your Windows installation:" And then my Windows install actually shows up "Windows 7(Recovered)"

I have done Start-up Repair 3 times with restarts and typed your code into the command prompt and it has executed successfully.

If I plug all my hard drives in it will not boot into a menu that lists:

• Ubuntu 9.10
• Linux memtest x86

With no trace of Windows in this menu?

How am I supposed to boot into Windows

 

[gregrocker]

You'll need to deep clean the Linux boot sector off the HD. Back up your files as it will wipe the entire HD and write zeros to every sector.

Boot the Win7 DVD Repair console, or Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list, open Command Line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (replace # with disk needing cleaning)
CLEAN ALL
It will take at least an hour to write zeros to every sector, so be patient as it is not stalled.
EXIT

Now boot back into Win7 installer to Custom Install, using Drive Tools to create New partition(s) as you wish, formatting before installing Win7 to first partition.

 

[infested999]

You'll need to deep clean the Linux boot sector off the HD. Back up your files as it will wipe the entire HD and write zeros to every sector.

Boot the Win7 DVD Repair console, or Repair CD, click through to Recovery Tools list, open Command Line, type:

DISKPART
LIST DISK
SELECT DISK # (replace # with disk needing cleaning)
CLEAN ALL
It will take at least an hour to write zeros to every sector, so be patient as it is not stalled.
EXIT

Now boot back into Win7 installer to Custom Install, using Drive Tools to create New partition(s) as you wish, formatting before installing Win7 to first partition.

So basically I will have to do a reinstall of windows anyway

There is no way to just edit the few KB in the registry to delete the Linux entry in the MBR of that hard drive...

EDIT: I think I'm getting somewhere with this!



EDIT2: I am now able to select Windows/Ubuntu each time I boot and both OSes work fine right now... and I almost thought I had to reinstall xD

Thank you all, my problem is now solved!!!