I did something dumb; is this how I can fix it?

[mac_mogul]

So I had two hard drives in my PC, 250gb and 500gb. Windows 7x32 was installed on the 500gb drive and the 250 was my media drive.

Obviously, more data = more problems so I got a 1TB drive for software/games/personal docs and prepared to clone the 250gb onto my 500gb.

I installed Windows 7x64 onto the 1tb first and it worked and I moved all of my files from the 500gb over. Perfect, no issues.

I cloned the 250gb and, (drumroll) it turns out I wrote right over the bootmgr on the 500gb - obviously since I installed Windows 7 on the new drive while using the old drive, the installer did not create a new bootmgr on the new drive.

Now tell me if this is correct.... IF I install Windows 7x64 (And bootmgr) on my 250gb drive and xcopy the bootmgr to the root of the 1tb drive, will I be able to boot into Windows without the 250gb drive?

At this point, I've got more data on the 1tb drive than I have space to back it up in order to do a full reinstall so I'm really looking for the best way to fix the installation on the 1tb drive without totally reformatting it. Otherwise I suppose I'll be buying another 1tb drive in the very near future...

 

[carnageX]

Why not just unplug the old drive, with only the new one plugged int... boot off of the Windows disc, choose the 'Repair my Computer' option, open up command prompt and issue:

bootrec /fixmbr (restores MBR)
and/or
bootrec /fixboot (writes entirely new boot sector)

More info here: http://www.tweakhound.com/2012/11/13/how-to-fix-the-windows-bootloader/

 

[mac_mogul]

I've tried that.

It SAYS it is completed, but it doesn't work.

 

[carnageX]

Including the "Option 2" in that link?

 

[mac_mogul]

Sorry, I missed the link! I will try the force command. I'd been in the bootsect.exe as well, but had not used the force command as I wasn't aware of what it would do.

I'm literally the worst person to be doing this kind of stuff. Ha.

 

[mac_mogul]

Ok so here's what I did in case anyone encounters the same thing - I did all the bootrec and bootsect commands and got zero results.

Well, I realized that my OS wasn't showing up on the WinRE tool. I didn't think anything of it at the time but when I noticed it I activated the disk partion using the diskpart command.

Once the OS was available in the list I though oh boy I can fix it but then I got the message "Windows recovery is not compatible with this version of windows."

Then I found out that if you upgraded to a service pack, the installation DVD no longer works for repairing your installation. I had to install Win 7 on my 250gb drive, go through and do ALL of the available windows updates, create a repair disc, and THEN I was able to fix the missing bootmgr on my 1tb drive.

All is well and working perfectly now.

 

[carnageX]

Then I found out that if you upgraded to a service pack, the installation DVD no longer works for repairing your installation. I had to install Win 7 on my 250gb drive, go through and do ALL of the available windows updates, create a repair disc, and THEN I was able to fix the missing bootmgr on my 1tb drive.

All is well and working perfectly now.

Could have just downloaded an ISO of Win7 with the SP integrated and then booted to the recovery menu from the disc lol.

 

[mac_mogul]

Ha! Well.... The important thing is that I fixed it!

 

[carnageX]

Lol that it is.

And for future reference: Legal Download from DigitalRiver: Windows 7 SP1, 13 languages