Please help with Windows 7 boot problem

[Fred]

Would someone that is knowledgeable about the Windows 7 boot process please help in the thread below. I just don't know enough about the Windows 7 boot to be able to help this user further. Grub should be ok now.

http://forums.linuxmint.com/viewtopic.php?f=46&t=25280

Thanks

Fred

[revdjenk]

Wha??? You want help booting a Microsoft product? Here? in Linux Mint's forum?

no, really?

He should wait a few more days and get the RC version and re-install...that is my 2 cents.

But my $50 million question...is why?

God Bless
Doug

[altair4]

I'm posting here and not the original post because I really don't know if this will work and I'm most certainly not knowledgeable about Win7. The problem as I see it is best described here: http://users.bigpond.net.au/hermanzone/ ... is_missing

BOOTMGR is missing (Vista/XP dual boot when adding Ubuntu)

From Ubuntu Web Forums Thread: http://www.ubuntuforums.org/showthread.php?t=319814
Quote from davidgarcin,
When I installed Vista, I already had XP and Ubuntu set up on the same hard drive. For some stupid reason, the Vista installer put bootmgr and c:\Boot on my XP partition (I guess maybe because it was (at the time) the first NTFS partition on the hard drive).

Of course, when I tried to boot the Vista partition from GRUB, it couldn't find bootmgr. Once I discovered the problem, all I had to do was copy/paste the bootmgr and the Boot folder from the root of my XP partition to the root of my Vista partition, and everything worked fine.

Moral of the story - look on other NTFS partitions for the missing bootmgr and Boot directory. Hope that helps.

-Dave
The above quoted problem comes about because during installation, Microsoft Windows operating systems are programmed to search for an existing Windows operating system in any computer they are being installed in.
If they find a pre-existing Windows installation in a primary partition, they are programmed to set up a 'Microsoft Default Dual Boot', and install the new operating system in a logical partition and install their boot loader files in the older operating system.

The problem in this case is:
(1) Its Vista and Win7
(2) Vista was wiped out and so where all contents of Win7's boot record. There is no boot record in the Win7 install at all.
(3) The original poster doesn't appear to have the Win7 install DVD to use to repair his Windows install.

This is what I would do:
(1) I would download the Windows Vista Recovery Disc:
http://neosmart.net/blog/2008/windows-v ... -download/

(2) Boot from the disk, choose ‘Press any key to boot from CD/DVD’ and Vista will start to load the Windows files. Click ‘Repair’ in the bottom left corner. Choose Command Prompt, then

Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR and press Enter

Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT and press Enter

(3) This will wipe out the current grub and install windows bootloader into the mbr but it should also reinstate the boot record into the Win7 partition. Then you could either go back to reinstall grub into the MBR or install EasyBCD into Win7 and use it to boot linux.

The big bet I'm making is that Win7 and Vista are close enough that a Vista repair disk will work on Win7. Prior to Vista if you inadvertainlly wiped out the Winxp bootloader you could download a on old windows bootdisk ( even a DOS bootdisk ) and do an fdisk /mbr to restore it. This would be the post WinXP equivalent.

Again I don't have any idea if that would work.

[Fred]

altair4,

Thanks much for your informative reply. I just don't keep up with where Windows is going these days.


@revdjenk,

I wasn't trying to pass judgment on the user's choices, only help him reconstitute his install.

Again, Thanks,

Fred