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Here is what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to switch my Primary OS drive from a larger hard drive (1TB) to a smaller hard drive (64GB SSD). All my data only totals up to +/- 35GB, which should fit on the SSD fine.

So I did some research and was able to get Sysrescuecd on a USB and boot into that to resize my 1TB partition to 45GB. I was then able to copy the parition (resized to fill the drive) to the SSD. (All done through gParted).

I know that the MBR has not been copied (for good reason), and I know that the SSD won't boot without it. So I launch up testdisk and was able to write the Test Disk MBR to the SSD.

This has allowed me to boot the SSD with the test disk MBR and prompt me "1234F:" to select which partition to try to boot from. When I select 1, it will boot to my Windows 7 partition fine.

Now I want the standard Windows MBR restored onto the hard drive, but I cannnot find the bootrec file from within Windows 7. (And I can't seem to find my install/recovery disc).

Are there any methods to restore the standard Windows 7 MBR from within Windows 7 or any method without using the Windows 7 Install/Recovery disc?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thank you!

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  • Hmm, the OP says they couldn't find their recovery disc. At least they had one. This question is from 2010, back when laptops still came with recovery discs. How quint. 😕
    – Synetech
    Sep 19, 2020 at 14:22

2 Answers 2

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Download mbrfix from http://www.sysint.no/products/Download/tabid/536/language/en-US/Default.aspx

This is a small, handy CLI tool. Then just run

 ./MbrFix.exe /drive 0 fixmbr /yes
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  • 1
    This is the simplest solution.
    – Nime Cloud
    Mar 27, 2014 at 8:06
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Two ways I can think of.

  1. Use the W7 recovery environment (boot from the Recovery CD/DVD) to execute the fixmbr command

Use another Windows 7 PC to make the recovery disc.

All Programs>Maintenance>Create a System Repair Disc

(2). Make a UBCD bootable flash drive, use one of the MBR tools to backup the original MBR and restore it to the new drive.

UBCD

Run Ultimate Boot CD from your USB memory stick. A script on the CD prepares your USB memory stick so that it can be used on newer machines that supports booting from USB devices. You can access the same tools as you would from the CD version.

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  • Use the W7 recovery environment (boot from the Recovery CD/DVD) to execute the fixmbr command - Um, I think you missed a big, primary part of the question. 🤨 How things have changed in the past decade. 😀
    – Synetech
    Sep 19, 2020 at 14:21

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