What did I do to my Windows 7 boot record?

[Christopher7xii]

Not entirely sure what I did, but Windows 7 stopped loading. I started off with Windows XP. Then I upgraded that to Windows 7 RC1. Then I upgraded that to the full retail ultimate (all of this is 32 bit).

I have 4 hard drives in my tower. I had one labeled Media where I stored all music/pictures/movies in. I got a larger drive since this was filling up and decided to migrate over. I did a simple CTRL+A, CTRL+C, then went to the new drive and CTRL+V'd in there. After the move, the old drive was reading "140 of 149gb free". Look in, I couldn't see anything. No hidden files. Figured just reformat. Tried to reformat through right clicking on the drive in My Computer and it said it was unable to. Went into Control Panel -> Admin -> Disk Management and it said it was a healthy partition. It also marked it as active, and this was the only drive that was. My Windows 7 install was a seperate physical disk and that didn't show active. It wouldn't let me format or do anything to the drive in here either. Despite knowing better, I through in my old XP setup disk and forced a format by deleting the partition then creating a new raw partition. Now Windows 7 won't boot.

So I guess my questions are... What was with those locked 9gb on the drive, how are they tied into my windows 7 install, and how do I fix it without having to do a fresh install of Windows 7?

[ua549]

You didn't indicate the volume letters. No matter what volume the OS is loaded on the boot files must be located on the first volume on the first drive on the first controller - volume C.

[Steve R Jones]

I think you can do a repair install or the old FIXMBR routine....

[Christopher7xii]

You didn't indicate the volume letters. No matter what volume the OS is loaded on the boot files must be located on the first volume on the first drive on the first controller - volume C.

Ah, so that's the case. Yeah, when I was inside of Windows XP's setup and formated the drive, it was labeled C while my Windows 7 partition was labeled D. Inside of Windows 7 though the drive I cleared was labeled M, and Windows 7 was C. I reorganized them after my Windows 7 install. Didn't realize there was stuff I couldn't adjust that way.

So at this point I obviously have wiped all my boot files... Is there any way to retrieve them? What assigned the C drive to that particular drive? Is it how the disks are physically fitted somehow inside the computer? Or the order I connected them in?

Been trying Windows 7 repair for about 4 cycles now, it doesn't seem to be doing much good... *sigh* I really didn't want to do a fresh install.

I have multiple drives - Is there a way I could do an install on there just to get the files i need and somehow link them to my non-loading Windows 7 partition?

[Christopher7xii]

I think you can do a repair install or the old FIXMBR routine....

What exactly is the old "FIXMBR routine" out of curiousity?

[Steve R Jones]

Thought for sure you'd beat me to GOOGLE's web site

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

[Christopher7xii]

Thought for sure you'd beat me to GOOGLE's web site

How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392

Heh, trust me, I've been hitting up the google. Been working on this since I posted, but still haven't managed a solution. What I've managed so far...

Just manage to find the installation with Bootrec.exe /ScanOs
Tried running the FixMBR and RebuildBCD commands as well to no avail. It returns a "element not found" response. Which means I must be directing it wrong.

The drive it found the installation on is drive E:/ - Is there a way for me to change the drive structure so it will be on C:/ instead of E:/ ?

Been mostly trying this thread's route of actions that I found via google.

http://www.sevenforums.com/general-d...-prompt-2.html

I greatly appreciate your help btw, Steve. Aside from not wanting a fresh restart, I also have something I was writing that I saved to the desktop (as well as quite a few other things I don't want to lose) Stupid since I usually store it on my flash drive, but that's usually how these things work.

[Steve R Jones]

The drive it found the installation on is drive E:/ - Is there a way for me to change the drive structure so it will be on C:/ instead of E:/ ?

That's the least of your worries...

Did you also do the FIXBOOT...I would think that or the fixmbr should have helped.

[Christopher7xii]

That's the least of your worries...

Did you also do the FIXBOOT...I would think that or the fixmbr should have helped.

Yeah, it kept saying Element not found. Guessing I just gotta reformat and suck up my loss.

Thanks though.