technofreeze Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 HiI have a Dell inspiron N4010 with Windows 7 Home basic, 4 GB Ram, 500 GB HDD.I accidently deleted the MBR information while using EasyBCD tool. Now I can't boot into the system though all my partitions and data are intact. I have a dual boot system, and I am able to access my linux partition through grub recovery tools(which were luckily not installed on windows partition)How can I restore/rewrite MBR so that I can boot into windows partition ? Recovery disc doesn't help as it doesn'trestore MBR :(Please I am really stuck with this problem. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 As you have access to GRUB just add W7 to the chainloader, so you have a menu when you start which allows you to choose which Os to boot to./>http://www.tipstrs.com/tip/84/Add-windows-to-grub-menu Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MANEMAN Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 As you have access to GRUB just add W7 to the chainloader, so you have a menu when you start which allows you to choose which Os to boot to./>http://www.tipstrs.com/tip/84/Add-windows-to-grub-menuGood tip Alan. I would follow that one through Technofreeze. Alan has obviously had experience with GRUB, - I have never used it, so cannot advise on that.( That's me being sensible Alan, just to prove that I dont fly around in a haze of Marijuana and Ecstasy all of the time. :P ).=.=.=.=.=.=.=.I have wrecked the MBR in Windows 7 many times, also using EasyBCD. Nothing to do with the excellent EBCD, just me being "Professor Messer."When I read your post I had to stop and think how I got out of the situation.I can remember wacking in the "Repair Disk" and doing a "Startup Repair", - and doing that about 10 times until finally it got so fed up with me that it did actually do a repair. I then thought I would see what else was offered on the disk, done some "Googling" and found more answers to cure the problem from "Command Prompt" on the repair disk.Came up with this: http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html - Worked/Works for me. :)Not quite sure what you Linux people do with all of that Voodo code and funny bootloaders, - so I would go with Alan's suggestion first technofreeze.Do come back and tell us how you get on with it.John. :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technofreeze Posted February 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Thanks John and AlanAlan I am trying your approach. Just trying to get linux up again through super grub disk.@JohnI have Dell recovery disk only which doesn't provide any option for startup recovery. It can only restore factory image which doesn't affect the MBR. Moreover, after messing up with my system for quite sometime, I finally thought of giving it a try again and allow all my data to be lost(factory image restore does that)But now it says that not enough disk space available. Probably my windows partition has become corrupt.Now Is there a way to boot into windows as I do not have windows 7 installation disk. Dell doesn't provide them :( Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technofreeze Posted February 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 @AlanI tied what you said. But I am still not able to boot into windows as no valid MBR is present for windows.Is there any other way to restore MBR for windows 7 ? or Is there a way to write a custom MBR. if yes, how ? Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MANEMAN Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 Grab The Recovery disk from here:/>http://cybernetnews.com/windows-7-recovery-disc/ (144MB or 166MB dependent on 32 or 64bit)That should kick the thing back into action. :) When you said in your first post, - "Recovery disc doesn't help as it doesn't restore MBR" I didn't realise that you meant "Back to factory settings recovery disk".Come on back again and let us know.John. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technofreeze Posted February 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 @Johni have already tried that. When I boot my system. It says: windows loading files . and after a few minutes it reports a problem saying some hardware might be disconnected like HDD or CD ROM Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 technofreeze, If adding the W7 to the chainloader does not work, then can you still access the W7 files?, through your distro.Are you using GRUB or GRUB2 ?. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technofreeze Posted February 1, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 technofreeze, If adding the W7 to the chainloader does not work, then can you still access the W7 files?, through your distro.yes, but I work on windows too so I need a working windows too. I have taken backup of all important files, but till now there is no way to even re-install windows. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted February 1, 2011 Report Share Posted February 1, 2011 On reading back through your posts, it stands a good chance that Windows is corrupted.In your distro use GParted to resize the partitions, to give you enough space to do your recovery install, the only downside is you will also have to reinstall your distro as well.If you use MANEMANS link, http://www.sevenforu...oot-record.html this will restore you a working W7, but you will still have to reinstall your distro. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bludgard Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 How can I restore/rewrite MBR so that I can boot into windows partition ? Recovery disc doesn't help as it doesn'trestore MBR :(If you can get your hands on an installation disk you can try the onboard tools to configure your Windows MBR.If you've got a System Reserved partition,the recovery tools are there if they are accessible.Here is a link for those tools available--->http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392Typingbootrec.exe /fixmbrin a command prompt has broght my Windows 7 back after problems with dual booting.I had to reinstall the Ubuntu for It was quicker than trying to fix it.I'm lazy. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
technofreeze Posted February 2, 2011 Author Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 thanks for your support.@bludgard command prompt was not accessible by following any means@Alan yes, the windows partition got corrupted. To confirm this I used parted magic to look at my partitions. It was not able to recognize the file system of C drive (though it was able to before I took the system to its extreme )So, I resolved it by finally deleting my C drive and then using recovery discs to install win7. then used super grub disk to boot into windows. Once I booted into windows I used EasyBCD to write windows 7 MBR. and now it works fine.Note: Just received a re-installation disc from Dell today. Quite quick, probably they read this forum :) Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 Glad it is up and running now.I have made a few mistakes using EBCD, but that is half the fun.Like MANEMAN, I get carried away sometimes. :lol: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Alan2273 Posted February 2, 2011 Report Share Posted February 2, 2011 bludgard, I do not see how the bootrec.exe /fixmbr command could work, as you have to be in the boot folder to run a command and that is bootsect /nt60 SYS /mbr. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
bludgard Posted February 3, 2011 Report Share Posted February 3, 2011 I honestly do not know the mechanics of it.I will do an exhaustive research on the subject and hopefully be able to offer some relavent posts on the MBR.I do know that I have booted from the install media and used the tool to restore Windows 7 back to a bootable and stable state after problems incurred by multibooting.More than once (so I wont chalk it up to luck)It would seem that when the Ubuntu boot partition was removed,it left Windows with a corrupt boot code.High and dry.Wonder how much money has been shelled out to fix this?Anyway,I followed the instructions in the above link and it worked.:) If I had the necessary skills/tools,I'd reproduce the activity and record it..... This is what I used. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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