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I used Mac OS X and Windows 7 with bootcamp for months without any problem. I had a total of 4 partitions: Macintosh HD, Recovery HD, Untitled (my windows boot drive) and Windows (I don't know what it is but it got there when I installed Windows). However, I added a partition from Disk Utility and now, I am unable to boot from the partition containing Windows. It seems to be a known issue, for instance, following to the answer given to this post I've been able to see again the partition called "Windows" but I need the other partition, "Untitled" to be available. How can I do that?

EDIT:

Here are the outputs of some terminal commands as asked in the comments.

morays-mbp:~ Moray$ diskutil list
/dev/disk0
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:      GUID_partition_scheme                        *750.2 GB   disk0
1:                        EFI EFI                     209.7 MB   disk0s1
2:                  Apple_HFS Macintosh HD            637.3 GB   disk0s2
3:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s3
4:       Microsoft Basic Data                         12.7 GB    disk0s4
5:                  Apple_HFS Storage                 48.7 GB    disk0s5
6:                 Apple_Boot Recovery HD             650.0 MB   disk0s6
7:       Microsoft Basic Data                         50.0 GB    disk0s7
/dev/disk1
#:                       TYPE NAME                    SIZE       IDENTIFIER
0:     FDisk_partition_scheme                        *500.1 GB   disk1
1:                 DOS_FAT_32 MAC HD                  500.1 GB   disk1s1


morays-mbp:~ Moray$ sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0 
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
   start        size  index  contents
       0           1         MBR
       1           1         Pri GPT header
       2          32         Pri GPT table
      34           6         
        40      409600      1  GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B
    409640  1244635224      2  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1245044864     1269536      3  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1246314400          96         
1246314496    24793088      4  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
1271107584         352         
1271107936    95117184      5  GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1366225120     1269536      6  GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC
1367494656    97652736      7  GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7
1465147392        1743         
1465149135          32         Sec GPT table
1465149167           1         Sec GPT header


morays-mbp:~ Moray$ sudo gpt -r show -l /dev/disk0
gpt show: /dev/disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0
     start        size  index  contents
         0           1         MBR
         1           1         Pri GPT header
         2          32         Pri GPT table
        34           6         
        40      409600      1  GPT part - "EFI System Partition"
    409640  1244635224      2  GPT part - "Sans titre"
1245044864     1269536      3  GPT part - "Recovery HD"
1246314400          96         
1246314496    24793088      4  GPT part - "Basic data partition"
1271107584         352         
1271107936    95117184      5  GPT part - "Storage"
1366225120     1269536      6  GPT part - "Recovery HD"
1367494656    97652736      7  GPT part - "WINDOWS"
1465147392        1743         
1465149135          32         Sec GPT table
1465149167           1         Sec GPT header

morays-mbp:~ Moray$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0
Disk: /dev/disk0    geometry: 91201/255/63 [1465149168 sectors]
Signature: 0xAA55
     Starting       Ending
 #: id  cyl  hd sec -  cyl  hd sec [     start -       size]
 ------------------------------------------------------------------------
 1: EE    0   0   2 - 1023 254  63 [         1 - 1271107935] <Unknown ID>
*2: 03 1023 254  63 - 1023 254  63 [1271107936 -   95117184] XENIX /usr  
 3: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
 4: 00    0   0   0 -    0   0   0 [         0 -          0] unused      
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  • It might help if we could see how your partition scheme looks to a few tools. Can you update your question with the output from each of the following commands? diskutil list, sudo gpt -r show /dev/disk0, sudo gpt -r show -l /dev/disk0 (yes, same command but with a -l in there this time), and sudo fdisk /dev/disk0. I seem to recall that Boot Camp requires that Windows must be installed in the last of the first 4 partitions of the drive, and below 2.2TB. Letting us inspect your partition tables will help us determine that.
    – Spiff
    Jun 9, 2014 at 17:30
  • @Spiff Added the outputs from each of the commands.
    – moray95
    Jun 10, 2014 at 11:16

2 Answers 2

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It looks like your hybrid MBR has become damaged. You can create a new one with gdisk (see the URL) or with other tools, such as the gptsync utility that comes with rEFIt and rEFInd, if you use one of those boot managers. You may also need to re-install the Windows boot loader -- but do that after you fix the hybrid MBR, and do so only if you still can't boot Windows after doing the fix.

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  • I tried following the steps on the link, but still there are no changes. I also downloaded rEFIt but couldn't understand how it worked. Would be nice if you can describe the steps or give a link about that.
    – moray95
    Jun 11, 2014 at 10:13
  • Just figured out that the link was missing the write command so the MBR on the computer wasn't updated. Got the problem solved thanks :)
    – moray95
    Jun 11, 2014 at 11:32
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If re-syncing your hybrid MBR with the GPT tables didn't work, please continue reading.

I suffered an issue similar to this and I want no one to have to go through what I went through again. It was terrible, and I'm going to try and spare you the misery. This might be a bit off topic, but I really want no one to suffer this again, and I know it's a common problem.

First and foremost, if you have done anything remotely similar to what I have, there's a fair chance you entire filesystem for Windows (the NTFS filesystem) has been corrupted/damaged. What does this mean? It basically means your data can't be read by "normal" means, but fortunately we have free and open-source software that allows us to go to town on fixing these pesky data loss issues. I've said this once, I'll say it a thousand times, back up your data before you do this. I was too dumb to, and ended up potentially losing days worth of code I've written for an upcoming project, and I would never have rewrote it.

Anyways, I'm off-topic.

I shrunk my OSX partition so that I could increase my Windows 7 partition. Sure enough, that broke it. I even synced the GPT and MBR, but I ended up getting "Missing Operating System". I was literally screwed - I even booted a Linux LiveUSB(stick) and it didn't detect the disk. As you can guess, my NTFS filesystem was corrupted. The most simple solution to this is to download "TestDisk", and run "PhotoRec". PhotoRec is unique in a way that it pretty much ignored all filesystem stuff, so a damaged filesystem doesn't mean ANYTHING to the program - it just finds your data and gets it to you. Granted, it's a bit weird, because the data is going to be all over the place. The names won't be saved, nor will the file names, but it seems like the extensions will. It's a lot to sort through, but it's a small price to pay for your precious data.

I'd like to note, if it isn't obvious, your Windows partition is now unbootable and completely useless. You'll have to somehow repair the corruption/damage, or flat-out reinstall Windows (to my limited knowledge).

I won't walk you through exactly how to use the program, but it's fairly straightforward. Give it a disk partition and tell it where to save and it'll spend the next few hours (or days) locating and copying it over.

I really do hope this helps, because it teached me to actually "do as I say", and backup more frequently.

note: I'd like to add that I spent 2 days trying to figure out how to resolve this before encountering TestDisk/PhotoRec.

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