I need to fix the bootsector on my Windows 7 partition by using this command from a rescue disk:
bootrec /fixboot
However my Windows 7 partition needs to be marked active by Windows to do this (or you get the Element not found error). The Windows 7 partition is in an extended partition so when you use diskpart to try to make that partition active, it complains that it cannot make that type of partition active.
How do I make a logical partition active (in the Windows way)?
EDIT: It appears that you cannot mark a logical partition as active, according to this webpage says:
In terms of how the disk is used, there are only two main differences between a primary and a logical partition or volume. The first is that a primary partition can be set as bootable (active) while a logical cannot. The second is that DOS assigns drive letters (C:, D: etc.) differently to primary and logical volumes.
Solution: For those who are in the same situation as me: I made my "Steam" partition active (its a primary ntfs partition) by going into Repair Mode of the Windows 7 install disk and doing the following commands:
diskpart
list disks
select disk 0
list partitions
select partition 3
active
and then using the "Startup Recovery" option. Now my Steam partition has the bootloader but it loads up my Win7 logical partition. I also updated GRUB2 accordingly (you don't need this if you aren't using linux) by placing this in /etc/grub.d/40_custom and running sudo update-grub:
menuentry "Windows 7 (loader) (on /dev/sda3)"
{
insmod ntfs
set root=(hd0,3)
search --no-floppy --fs-uuid --set <Your UUID Here>
chainloader +1
}
You may also need to use these commands if it still doesn't work (don't use the last with GRUB):
bootrec /fixboot
bootrec /rebuildbcd
bootrec /fixmbr
