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I recently tried to reformat one of the partitions in my dual boot PC. I originally had XP and then installed 7 as a dual boot. Well, long story short, XP was having problems, so I reformatted the XP partition and lost my ability to dual boot.

I first tried EasyBCD, to fix the problem, but this made things worse. Upon restart I could no longer even load XP. Thus, I deleted the XP partition entirely in hopes to just have the Windows 7 partition and be able to boot.

Of course, this failed too and left me only able to boot from CD.

Is there any way I can fix this problem? I have tried commands in the command prompt off the 7 cd. I tried bootrec /rebuildbcd and got an "element not found" error. I then tried to make the partition active by using diskpart, but it give me a "the specified partition type is not valid for this operation" error.

Given CarpeNoctem's answer below I did bootsect /nt60 ALL. This completed successfully, but I'm still getting:

Verifying DMI Pool Data ......
Boot from CD/DVD: DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER

I tried bootrec /fixmbr and a reboot, but still the same error. I've tried to erase the BCD files but it says access is denied on D: (my second partition) and it says it cannot find the specified file in C: (my erased partition). Next I did bootrec /rebuildbcd again, and it identified 1 Windows installation, C:\Windows, just like bootrec /scanos reports.

That's where I'm at.

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migrated from serverfault.com Feb 16 '10 at 6:51

This question came from our site for system administrators and desktop support professionals.

2 Answers

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Boot off a windows 7 disk and select "Repair your computer" then choose "command prompt". Now cd into the boot dir and run:

bootsect /nt60 ALL

Report back.

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Thank you for the help. I did that and my bootcode was successfully updated on all target volumes. How should I proceed from here? Sorry. I'm not great with command prompt. – Travis Feb 16 '10 at 4:09
Since there's no additional OSes installed at this time then there's no reason to manually edit the BCD or anything like that. How do you fair on reboot? – CarpeNoctem Feb 16 '10 at 4:23
I still get the stupid Verifying DMI Pool Data ...... Boot from CD/DVD: DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT SYSTEM DISK AND PRESS ENTER – Travis Feb 16 '10 at 4:26
Sounds like the MBR might have been borked somehow. The bootsect is probably good so let's try "bootrec /fixmbr" and a reboot. If that doesn't work then the BCD is next. – CarpeNoctem Feb 16 '10 at 4:32
I did it and it completed successfully. But I'm still getting that lovely BOOT DISK FAILURE error. Thanks so much for helping me. – Travis Feb 16 '10 at 4:39
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If you changed the numbers of partitions, Windows won't work any more, since it uses partition numbers internally.

But since you are on Windows 7, see this article - How to Run a Startup Repair in Windows 7:

Startup Repair is a Windows 7 system recovery tool that can fix certain problems, such as missing or damaged system files (ex: MBR boot file), that might prevent Windows from starting correctly. This will show you how to run Startup Repair to allow it to scan your Windows 7 computer for a startup problem and try to fix it so your computer can start correctly.

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