Windows 7 won't boot after removing a hard drive.

[pvliii]

Background:

I just finished putting together my new PC. Intel Core i5, nice video card, etc (I'll throw all the specs up later, I don't have them nearby). It was running great. Not a single problem. I had two hard drives installed, a 1TB and a 750GB. The 750GB was carried over from my previous build as it is my data drive (movies, music, documents, etc). My OS installed lives on the 1TB. I remember looking at the disk management console and seeing the 750 as disk 0 and the 1TB (OS) as disk 1. I thought that was a little strange, but it was working with no problems so I let it go.

I have a small Dell server, PowerEdge T100, which I decided to put to use as a media server for the Xbox or PS3 (Running Tversity - Free version, works great). I decided to pull the 750GB drive from my PC and place it in the server since that's where I'll be storing a bulk of the media moving forward. Installed it, powered on, assigned a drive letter, all is well.

I attempted to boot my PC, which now only has the OS drive, and nothing. The BIOS tells me to insert boot media. I checked the startup settings, the drive was set as the first boot device. Tried again. Nothing.

What I've done so far:

-Changed the SATA ports, it was originally in port 5, tried port 4, put back in port 5.
-Booted to Win7 DVD
-Attempted recovery mode
-Could not detect my OS
-Opened a command prompt window
-Able to Cd to C:\, all files look normal.
-Ran bcdedit commands

It almost seems to me like the boot record was placed on the data drive rather than the OS drive. I would assume I need to recreate the MBR on the OS drive, but I've been unsuccessful so far.

If need be I can place the data drive back in the PC and I would assume it would boot fine. I'd prefer to avoid doing that because then I'm just back where I was. I'd also like to avoid doing a clean install because I work in IT and I'd like to actually figure out a solution, but if it comes down to it, so be it.

Thanks in advance. I'll post more specifics and try out any possible solutions when I get home from work tonight.

 

[SIW2]

Put the data drive back in.

Boot into 7.

Rt click and RUN AS ADMIN on sisparv6.cmd

Select the 7 drive letter as new system partition

select N to including existing boot menu entries.

Select Data partition drive letter to make Inactive.

That's it.


Then you can take the data drive out , and restart normally.

 

[pvliii]

SIW2 - Thanks for the quick reply. I'll give that a shot when I get home.


If that's the fix, which I have a feeling it is, what would cause the OS drive to not be marked as the system partition when 7 was installed?

 

[SIW2]

Data drive was first in bios boot order at the time of install.

 

[pvliii]

Good enough, thanks!

 

[pvliii]

SIW2 - I didn't download that file yet, can you repost? Thanks.

 

[pvliii]

SIW2 - I didn't download that file yet, can you repost? Thanks.

SIW2 - Can you repost the file? Thanks.

 

[pvliii]

I put the other drive back in the PC. Upon reboot I receive:

"Bootmgr is missing Press Ctrl+Alt+Del to restart."

So far I've done everything here: How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows and bootrec /fixboot from the system restore command prompt.

Any suggestions?

 

[pvliii]

I've performed the automatic startup recovery (which I tried twice before the previous steps with no luck). It worked this time!

 

[SIW2]

Check in Disk Management.

If the "system" partition is not on the win7 HD , run sispar.cmd as outlined in my earler post.

 

[pvliii]

Ok we're all set. SIW2 - Your post worked great once I could get Windows booted. I'll be adding that tool to my thumb drive for the future.

Is there a way to mark this thread as solved?

 

[SIW2]

Is sispar still on your HD ?


Click the little red triangle top rt of your post and request mark as solved.

 

[pvliii]

Yes, I still have the zip file.

 

[SIW2]

Where did you d/l it to?

What do you have on your thumb drive - do you have a bootable winpe 3 ?

 

[pvliii]

Where did you d/l it to?

What do you have on your thumb drive - do you have a bootable winpe 3 ?

My C drive.

No no, I was saying that I'm going to add it to the collection of utilities I have on my thumb drive. I work in IT, so I'm sure I'll have a need for it some time in the future.

 

[Haegej]

Sorry to resurrect this thread from June, but I have (I believe) the same problem...

Assembled my setup this past summer, with the following configuration:

1. 1TB Seagate HDD in the Sata2_0 port
2. 500GB Samsung HDD in Sata2_1 port

3. Installed Win7 on the 500GB HDD

4. The Seagate is failing, so I wanted to remove it and replace it. Upon removal, I cannot boot into Win7 at all, even though it's setup in the BIOS to check the Samsung, etc.

So, I'm assuming I'm in the same boat where since the Seagate was in the higher priority position, and thus it's needed for booting.

I don't have access to my Win7 cd right now, but I was wondering if there was still a way to fix the problem, without it, using a similar strategy as presented in this thread?

I appreciate any help anyone here can offer, thank you very much!

 

[Haegej]

Anyone?