So I recently got a new HDD. Put it in and started reinstalling windows onto it. I'd got my external drive plugged in at the same time. Install seemed to go fine, no problems, everything seemed alright. Today, plugged the power in, turned off the external HDD as it was making a noise. Turned the PC on, went past POST, got to the little white flashing cursor thingy, and stuck. Restarted, same thing. Turned on the external drive. Boots up fine. In the Storage Management thing, the external drive is apparently : System, Active, Primary Partition If I try the repair function after booting from the windows disk, without the external HDD on, the box where it asks you to pick the OS to repair, there isn't an OS listed. So, it seems as though the install details etc went onto the external drive, or the MBR or something. Is it possible to get it booting properly from the correct HDD without reinstalling windows again. I'm not overly bothered if I have to reinstall, its just easier if I don't have to. Cheers.
dammit. Just tried to boot up with the external drive on. And it won't boot now. If left for long enough, it comes up with the message : Reboot and select proper boot device or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key Stupid computers. Looks like I'll have to reinstall windows now.
Think I can fix it without reinstalling?? Just tried booting into linux via CD, to see if I could edit boot.ini. But win7 doesn't have boot.ini does it? Couldn't find it anyway, and anything that looked boot related, ubuntu wouldn't open. I must be able to sort it if its just a mucked up MBR, surely.
Ahh, I can run that command from the command prompt by booting from the windows disc. link dear god I hope it works, . *EDIT* Stupid thing!!!!!! Booted from my windows disc. But it doesn't have this bootsect.exe It would seem that I can't repair the MBR, because the windows disc doesn't know that theres a OS installed on the hard drive.
Is it possible for me to use my Windows Vista disk, which is a proper OEM disk, as opposed to my windows 7 disk, which is a MSDNAA student copy (downloaded ISO and burned)? Are the progs the same??
oh balls. I'm just going to reinstall. It'll be easier than trying to faff around with this stupid thing.
I unplugged my external hd when i installed win 7, don't know why, just wanted to make things as simple as possible for the install.
Yeah, I had all my other drives unplugged. But forgot about the external one. Didn't think it would matter. If I tell the installer I want windows on this HDD, why the hell would it go and put the MBR on another HDD!!! Reinstalled yesterday, didn't take long. Should be back to where I was yesterday morning sometime today, only got a few things left to install.