1

In short: I can't boot my laptop.

It will ONLY boot when I insert a RescueLiveBootUSB, it then shows the normal bootmenu.

Longer description of the problem: After moving/resizing the partitions, I got booting problems. Setup is four partitions:

  1. Vista (original partition when I bought it)
  2. WinXP
  3. W7
  4. Recovery partition for Vista, doesn't work now. Never tested it when thing ran smoothly, actually.

Goal: I wanted to switch from vista to w7, but i mucked about with the partitions and I guess I damaged the bootloader and/or the mbr??? (what's the difference between these 2?)

Situation Before: It was a triple boot system.

Each OS was installed on it's own partition.

Situation After: I can only boot with the RescueLiveBootUSB inserted.

Then, I get the same bootmenu with 3 OSes as I always did.

Funny thing: The RescueLiveBootUSB does NOT offer it's own extensive boot options (it's the well-known H?????15.2.iso) AT ALL. (not promoting anything here, hence the "?????"). It just shows me the old bootmenu.

It almost seems as if it repaired my boot menu, but on the usb, not on the HDD. [b]I did too, muck about with the Vista Rescue ISO too.[/b]

Question: How do I get my normal boot menu back, without having to use an USB??

Hardware: HP Pavilion DV2, 298 GB HDD

specs: http://www.pcworld.com/product/58935/pavilion-dv2-1030us-entertainment-notebook.html

And sure, sure, sure, it's an entirely workable situation but I still like to get things back to normal. EDIT: Getting a new HDD, going to some repairshop or formatting my drives aren't options for me. Thank you.

Improve this question
0

It seems that your boot loader on the hard disk is corrupted. The boot loader is the piece of code that checks the partitions on the hard disk and show you the boot menu.

Since all your partitions contains Windows installations, chances are good that if you reinstall the Windows 7 boot loader everything will be well.

Try to start the computer from a Windows 7 DVD, then select "repair your computer" and let it try repairing automatically.

Improve this answer
2
  • I tried that already with the []Vista Repair.iso[], and the Vista partition set to bootable, but no joy. I will try it again with the win7 partition set to bootable, instead of the Vista partition. – GwenKillerby Aug 19 '14 at 4:08
  • JOY! Making the w7 partition bootable & THEN using the repair-iso. There are 2 .iso's out there, the Vistax32RecoveryDisc.iso and the Win7RepairDisc.iso. I made the original partition bootable (Vista), then then ran the Vista-iso from a stick. Didn't work. Using TestDisk to reset the bootflag to w7 partition, produced a new errormessage "bootmgr missing" without Repair-iso. Booting Vista, gave no errmassage. Using the W7-iso, it restored the bootmenu. I suspect it didn't work cos I've installed W7 after Vista, which somehow made W7 dominant & Vista irrelevant??? A new question? – GwenKillerby Aug 19 '14 at 9:33

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy

Not the answer you're looking for? Browse other questions tagged or ask your own question.