Windows 7 Fails to start MBR failure

[TimmyMaclean]

All

I recently had a dual boot windows 7 system. I had one install on my 1tb drive and 1 install on my 500gb drive. The dual installs were because I had a load of hardware failures and by the time I got to sorting that out I was left with 2 installs.

The first install (not used) occurred on the 1tb drive however my currently used install is on the 500Gb. I have recently decided to get rid of the other install completely to which I understood the only solution (right or wrong) was to get rid of the partition without leaving a lot of files kicking around. I did this, foolishly, and I obviously deleted the MBR on the 1TB drive when I got rid of the partition. Failure I get now is NTDLR is missing.

On restart I was hoping that I could recreate the MBR on the 500GB drive (therefore directly booting to the valid install) when it restarted however in attempting to do this (using the Win 7 CD) it cannot locate any OS available to assign the MBR to.

Are there any easy solutions to this before I spend the next week trying to create a boot to this drive and then formatting it out of frustration

Thanks very much guys

 

[richc46]

Will this help
http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html?filter[2]=General Tips

 

[gregrocker]

Unplug the 1 tb HD, set 500gb Win7 HD as first HD to boot in BIOS setup, boot the Win7 DVD or Repair CD, press Shift F10 to open a Command Line and use the Diskpart commands given here to mark Win7 partition Active: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/71432-partition-mark-active.html

Next boot back into the DVD Repair console or Repair CD, accept any offered Repair. If Win7 doesn't start, boot back in again, click through to Recovery Tools list to run Startup Repair up to 3 separate times to write the MBR to WIn7 and start it: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/105541-startup-repair-run-3-separate-times.html

In the rare case where this fails, boot back into Command line to run "bootrec /fixmbr" and "bootrec /fixboot" to see if it will now show an installation to repair, then run Startup Repair again x3.

 

[TimmyMaclean]

Hi and thanks for the quick reply. It probably would but when I tried to do this last night it wouldnt recognise any OS to select and therefore boot command line to or repair. I am going to disconnect all my other SATA drives this evening to ensure that the 500GB is set as primary. It does see the disk at the stage just before I would be due to install a new OS but not at this point. Thanks

 

[gregrocker]

You have to mark it Active first.

Follows the exact steps given above.

 

[TimmyMaclean]

Thanks very much, I thought I had done this (just in case) through win 7 disk management before I partitioned however its quite possible that I didnt do it correctly. I will give this a go tonight and post my results tomorrow morning.
Thanks again

 

[gregrocker]

It will start unless the OS is damaged beyond what the multiple startup repairs run can fix before writing the MBR to partition, it just takes persistence.

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Hello TimmyMaclean, welcome to Seven Forums!





Is that XP or Windows 7 that you are trying to get booted on the 500GB Hard Disk Drive (HDD), if it's XP EasyBCD will do it. Do like Greg says and disconnect all other HDDs first.


EasyBCD Boot File Repair Tool

​

 

[TimmyMaclean]

It will start unless the OS is damaged beyond what the multiple startup repairs run can fix before writing the MBR to partition, it just takes persistence.

Guys

I would like to thank all for your help and to Greg for being so exact, once the partition was up it took exactly 3 times for win to fix the boot record. Up and running so thanks again!

 

[Bare Foot Kid]

Glad to see you got it sorted and thanks for the update..