MBR not found when booting Windows 7 (Dual-boot with linux)

[sord]

I have 3 hard drives on my tower: one 250 gb for data, one with 500 gb for Windows 7(64) and lastly I have one with 80 gb for Windows XP(32). I had installed XP before I installed 7. After installing 7, whenever I powered the machine, it would allow me to choose between "Windows 7" or "an older version of windows" (XP). Perhaps I was not careful nor did I do enough research when I installed 7, but I assumed the hdd with XP would keep its MBR with only one option and a new MBR would be installed on the 500gb hdd allowing me to choose between both.

Now taking this in consideration, and as I had stopped using XP completely, I thought it would be harmless to format the 80gb hdd. I wanted to install Linux. So I installed Ubuntu (10.04) 64bit on the 80gb, assuming that grub2 would be installed there with an entry for Windows 7 (the MBR installed on the 500gb hdd). Things did not go as I'd expect. Not only did grub2 not display any Windows 7 entry, whenever I set the 500gb as first boot hdd, I get an error saying no MBR was found.

Believing that for some reason the MBR in the 500 gb was damaged (or maybe it never existed, perhaps what really happened was that the 80gb XP MBR was edited during 7 install), I inserted the Windows 7 64 bit dvd, accessed repair, dos and ran repair commands I found on the web (not blindly of course). More specifically, "bootsect /nt60 D:" ( http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html ), where D: was the label shown for the 500gb hdd when I ran "list volume" in diskpart.

Unfortunately, this did not help, as the same error is still being presented. The data is there though, and in Ubuntu I can access it and I can even detect the existence of Windows 7 install using a script in the terminal there. Appreciate any insight.

 

[theog]

Try this:

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

Use EasyBCD 2.0 in Win 7 & Win XP.
EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello sord, welcome to Seven Forums.



Have a look in disk management to see if W 7 is "Active, System" and if it is not right click the partition with W 7 on it and mark it "Active" then use the info in this tutorial at the link below to run a startup repair it may take as many as three 3 separate repairs with re-boots between them to re-write the boot files back to the Windows partition.
Be sure to post back to keep us informed.


How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7

 

[sord]

Thanks for the welcome .

Try this:

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

Use EasyBCD 2.0 in Win 7 & Win XP.
EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums

Do you mean those two methods as alternative? So I shall only try EasyBCD if the repair tool fails?

Hello sord, welcome to Seven Forums.



Have a look in disk management to see if W 7 is "Active, System" and if it is not right click the partition with W 7 on it and mark it "Active" then use the info in this tutorial at the link below to run a startup repair it may take as many as three 3 separate repairs with re-boots between them to re-write the boot files back to the Windows partition.
Be sure to post back to keep us informed.


How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7

"Have a look in disk management" - Do you mean somewhere inside Ubuntu? i'm running the repairs mentioned in that tutorial at the moment, finished the first one and it said it found problems that could not be fixed (irrelevant info, errors with "unknown" as signatures, did not submit to MS).

Will post feedback, thanks for the quick replies.

EDIT: second attempt also failed, this time I opened the Diagnosis and repair details and it reported that the system disk is \Device\Harddisk0. Is this correct? At the moment, in the bios settings, the 500 gb hard drive is not the first (third actually, detected as sdc in Ubuntu).

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Thanks for the welcome .

Try this:

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

Use EasyBCD 2.0 in Win 7 & Win XP.
EasyBCD 2.0 Beta Builds - The NeoSmart Forums

Do you mean those two methods as alternative? So I shall only try EasyBCD if the repair tool fails?

Hello sord, welcome to Seven Forums.



Have a look in disk management to see if W 7 is "Active, System" and if it is not right click the partition with W 7 on it and mark it "Active" then use the info in this tutorial at the link below to run a startup repair it may take as many as three 3 separate repairs with re-boots between them to re-write the boot files back to the Windows partition.
Be sure to post back to keep us informed.


How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7

"Have a look in disk management" - Do you mean somewhere inside Ubuntu? i'm running the repairs mentioned in that tutorial at the moment, finished the first one and it said it found problems that could not be fixed (irrelevant info, errors with "unknown" as signatures, did not submit to MS).

Will post feedback, thanks for the quick replies.

Yeah, that was a dumb statement if you cant get into Windows.

Use this to boot and mark Windows as "Active" and run the repairs, look at Option Three, Step Two; that should work.


Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD

 

[theog]

When you have Windows 7 booting, you can sort out the dual boot with EasyBCD.

How to use EasyBCD:
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/8057-dual-boot-installation-windows-7-xp.html?ltr=D

 

[sord]

Use this to boot and mark Windows as "Active" and run the repairs, look at Option Three, Step Two; that should work.


Partition Wizard : Use the Bootable CD

Will do so. I believe I can set it to "Active" (exclusively "Active" I assume) in Ubuntu, will do so after this one is done. If it fails, I'll try Partition Wizard.

If that fails, I'll attempt EasyBCD that theog mentioned meanwhile.

NOTE:
EDIT: second attempt also failed, this time I opened the Diagnosis and repair details and it reported that the system disk is \Device\Harddisk0. Is this correct? At the moment, in the bios settings, the 500 gb hard drive is not the first (third actually, detected as sdc in Ubuntu).

 

[sord]

All right I ran Partition Wizard, followed Option3Step2, the hdd was already set as Primary, so only set it as active. Startup Repair is still not being able to fix it. I feel it is necessary to mention again, the repair tool is reporting disk0 in the details of the failed repair. My hdd with 7 is not set as first hdd to boot in hdd boot priority in the bios, don't know if that has anything to do with it. Going to attempt theog's solution now.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Have you done at least 3 separate repairs with re-boots between the repairs it often takes that to re-write the boot files to the Windows partition, once it's been marked "Active"?

 

[sord]

Did 3 repairs with reboots between them. The error code was always 0x1f: "System volume on disk is corrupt.". System Disk = \Device\Harddisk0 and the first hard drive in the bios hard drive priority list is the 500 GB one with 7. No luck so far.

Going to read into theog's suggestion now. Thanks for the help so far.

By the way, are the forums under DDoS or something?

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Have a look at this one, be aware, if used it does the WHOLE HDD, it won't do just a partition; just an idea.


SSD / HDD : Optimize for Windows Reinstallation

 

[sord]

Will do so, get back to you soon.

By the way I wanted to edit my previous post to add something, but the forums are being DDoSed it seems:

EDIT: theog multi-booting (dual in this case) will not pose a problem for me, as I can sort out and configure grub2 fine (it's between Ubuntu and Windows 7, not Windows XP and 7 by the way). The problem is the MBR issue with Windows 7.

For that problem, both of you recommended the same tutorial (System Repair), but unfortunately I was not able to fix it.

Thanks so far, not sure what else I can do. Data is the least because I keep that in the data hard drive, it's just an annoyiance to reinstall 7 because of all the software.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Too bad it hasn't been sorted so far; do post back to keep us informed though.

 

[sord]

Seeing as I have not been able to repair it yet (System Repair never locates the hard drive with 7 and always fails) I might just format and reinstall 7 on that hard drive, then it should be bootable and grub2 will be used for multi-booting.

I still have one question though: that last link you provided is just for zeroing out the whole hard drive? I haven't understood the problem with that 100 MB boot partition, what would it imply assuming that I install it on the 500 GB hard drive while I have grub2 (boot loader) and Ubuntu both on the 250 GB drive? Is it less efficient with the 100 MB partition?

 

[gregrocker]

Try unplugging the Ubuntu HD, mark WIn7 active then boot the WIN7 DVD Repair or REpair CD to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times. You may need to unplug XP HD also.

If this starts Win7, use EasyBCD 2.0 to Add XP to Windows-managed Dual Boot, or unplug Win7 and run an XP Repair Install so XP HD becomes independent as well, booted via the BIOS.

Once these two drives boot independently via BIOS boot order or the one-time Bios Boot Menu (look for the key given on first boot screen or in your mobo manual) unplug both and reinstall or repair Ubuntu to also boot independently via BIOS.

This keeps all HD's independent to come and go as you please, and keeps GRUB from interfering at all.

 

[sord]

I no longer have XP, I stated in my original post that it's only Ubuntu+7 and a third data hard drive.

I will attempt to unplug the Ubuntu and data hard drives, perhaps the repair tool might be successful then. Afterwards I'd just reconnect all drives, set the hard drive with grub2 as first boot in the bios and then keep a 7 entry in grub2. Doing this will (I've done it in the past with XP+Linux) in theory allow me to enter 7 from grub2 or directly as a first boot hard drive.

Thanks for the help so far, will get back when I have more results.

 

[sord]

SOLVED: gregrocker's advice worked, I unplugged all hard drives and then the System Repair tool identified Windows 7 and was able to fix it. Afterward I plugged everything back in, gave top boot priority to the grub2 hard drive and am now able to choose between Ubuntu or Windows 7.

Thanks for the help!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello again sord.




Glad you got it booting again; thanks for the update.