How would I repair the mbr from within windows? I installed Ubuntu onto a second partition. I want to delete said partition as my need for a linux distro has now passed. Once I delete that partition grub will go broke. I know I can do this from the recovery console but I want to try from windows itself. I know in XP I could fdisk /mbr
and in 7 I technically would use bcdedit
but that output looks scary in my other Windows 7 machine.
3 Answers
It looks like the EasyBCD utility will do the trick. It says "Windows Vista", but the bootloader is the same in Vista and Windows 7.
You can download it here: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1
There's an option under "Manage Bootloader" to "Reinstall the Vista Bootloader".
Good luck.
If you still have the Ubuntu OS running, there might be a backup of the original MBR somewhere already. My Slackware puts it in /boot/boot.800. I could restore it with dd if=/boot/boot.800 of=/dev/sda count=1 bs=512 The /dev/sda assumes it's on the first SATA or scsi drive, if it's on second drive it'd be /dev/sdb, etc. Old ESDI drives would be /dev/hda etc.
Windows 7 has fdisk /fixmbr and fdisk /fixboot to fix your MBR and bootsector. It should reinstall your Windows bootloader. You must, however, perform this from a Recovery console. To use this, insert your Windows install disc, reboot and choose (R)epair during setup.
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Again thanks for the idea but I was trying to do it from within windows itself. Mar 2, 2010 at 0:27