Operating system not found (after formatting)

[TimothyVermeire]

Hello,

I just used Easeus partition manager to make some changes to my hard disks. I have two disks in my laptop, one which contained an old Vista OS, a recovery partition and a partition with some data, and another one with W7.
I decided to make some room by reformatting the disk with Vista, and splitting the disk with W7 into two partitions, the original one with the 7 OS and a new partition for recovery.

All of this went fine, until I tried to reboot, I get the classic "No operating system found".
I booted with the recovery cd, but at the screen where you are prompted to select your operating system, the list is empty. I think this is <b>not</b> a driver issue, because when I click load driver I can browse my hard drives just fine (which are also partitioned and formatted like I asked Easeus to do).
I just clicked next, and tried using the command line with the

bootsect /nt60 ALL /mbr

command but no luck, it tells me the "update may be unreliable" on the W7 disk because it was "locked during the update: access denied". It still gave the "OS not found" error when rebooting.
I also tried the automatic Startup Repair, which didn't change anything.

What's the next thing I should try?

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Using

bootrec /scanos

I now know the there is one windows installation present: D:\Windows (which is what I expected).

Now when I try to add the OS to the boot list using

 bootrec /rebuildbcd

and selecting Yes when prompted, I get the error: Element not found.

 

[Tews]

Do a repair install from the Windows 7 DVD .. This should resolve your issue ...

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Do a repair install from the Windows 7 DVD .. This should resolve your issue ...

What repair install exactly? Do you mean one of the options in the sys recovery options (startup repair, system restore, ...) or the screen before that? Or the one where you are simply asked if you want to install W7? (where you can click "repair installation" or something.

 

[Tews]

Do a repair install from the Windows 7 DVD .. This should resolve your issue ...

What repair install exactly? Do you mean one of the options in the sys recovery options (startup repair, system restore, ...) or the screen before that? Or the one where you are simply asked if you want to install W7? (where you can click "repair installation" or something.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?ltr=R

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Do a repair install from the Windows 7 DVD .. This should resolve your issue ...

What repair install exactly? Do you mean one of the options in the sys recovery options (startup repair, system restore, ...) or the screen before that? Or the one where you are simply asked if you want to install W7? (where you can click "repair installation" or something.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/3413-repair-install.html?ltr=R

That seems to be what I need... I assume I am supposed to install W7 again on the other disk, and run it from there?

Edit: in fact what I said sounds pretty dumb, because I would then be repairing the new installation...

How can I start a repair install from within windows 7 if I can't even get in windows 7?...

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Does anyone have more information?

 

[Tews]

Boot from the DVD and select repair install.... follow the instructions in the linked tutorial..

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Boot from the DVD and select repair install.... follow the instructions in the linked tutorial..

The linked tutorial says install repair can ONLY be accessed from WITHIN win7, which I can't access...

And I never heard of a "boot from DVD" option, am I missing something?

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Okay, I get it now, I actually formatted the partition containing the MBR.

Now I have installed W7 on the first disk again (which contained the MBR) but it doesn't detect the other installation on the second disk (probably because the MBR is damaged).

How do I solve this?

None of the commands in the system recovery prompt from the installation DVD worked correctly...

 

[Tews]

Ok .... try this ... MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Ok .... try this ... MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record

That didn't work, I tried it a few times. I think I need to use a utility like FixMBR.exe, but if I do something wrong there I'm ****ed, so I need to figure it out first.

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Ok .... try this ... MBR - Restore Windows 7 Master Boot Record

That didn't work, I tried it a few times. I think I need to use a utility like FixMBR.exe, but if I do something wrong there I'm ****ed, so I need to figure it out first.

Or rather, mbrfix.exe. What would be the appropiate commands to make a new MBR telling the computer that there is an OS on the D: drive?

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Anyone?

 

[TimothyVermeire]

It's fixed! Apparently installing Windows 7 on another drive and THEN rebooting from the CD made it detect the old installation. I was able to repair it and now it booted from there again. Perfect.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello TimothyVermeire.



I see you have this sorted but if you have any other issues have a look at the tutorial at the link below, you don't have to be "in Windows" to run this one and it'll fix most boot problems.


How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7

 

[TimothyVermeire]

Hello TimothyVermeire.



I see you have this sorted but if you have any other issues have a look at the tutorial at the link below, you don't have to be "in Windows" to run this one and it'll fix most boot problems.


How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7

Yes, I did try that, didn't work out. Anyway thanks for your comment!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

At least you found a solution.