Broken win 7 MBR, boot-repair not fixing

seanpf1 · May 12, 2016

So I've exausted my resources attempting to fix this issue. Basically my win7 wasnt shutting down and I had to force power off. Then it didn't boot. I was able to fix it through windows recovery boot repair/restore, and then when i rebooted again it had the same issue but this time I couldn't fix.

I run a UEFI GPT setup.

Here is my boot-repair log after trying the general fix-all
http:/paste.ubuntu.com/16371883

Im assuming that the reason it did not boot was because windows created a temporarily mbr entry for the updates, and then since that didn't complete it screwed everything up. After not being fixed after the first boot-repair attempt, which I think defaulted to sda1 (which is probably the boot partition?). Once I tried boot-repair again with sda3, I was able to get windows to start to load, but it stalled at the windows screen. Im thinking perhaps this is because I pointed it straight to the windows install partition and bypassed the EFI / bootloader ? I noticed there is a 'windows boot manager', which the first time i repaired the issue I selected and got my computer to work, before it rebooted again and died. Im assuming I need to select this to get it to boot the EFI install?

Once I set it to sda3, I was able to start the windows repair directly from the HD install, and it said it found problems and listed all the stuff it was going to fix. I thought 'finally yes, it sees the problems and will fix!' ....nope. As soon as I hit repair it said "Failed to save startup options" and now ever since then windows RE wont even see my C:\ partition.

Here's some images of that process-

http://imgur.com/a/QKBGX

Some things to note are that I can see and mount my windows partition fine in ubuntu, browse, etc. I checked the SDD, it shows smart status ok, did a test, everything looks great. Im pretty sure its just a botched grub/bootloader.

I was able to salvage some of the windows repair attempt logs/files, specifically the BCD.Backup.0001 and the BCD.LOG / 2 / 3

They are located here -

https://jumpshare.com/v/CJncUx7hoDgvoFrVZ6h7

I swore i backed up the my boot info and partition data the first time to my ext drive, but inside the folder I created there is nothing there

Hopefully i didn't mess with it so much that its unrepairable.

Here's all my attempted boot-repair logs. The one at the top is the first attempt, and I will list them in order of the next attempts, so next url is #2 repair attempt, after that #3 etc.

http:/paste.ubuntu.com/16371966
http:/paste.ubuntu.com/16371974
http:/paste.ubuntu.com/16372196
http:/paste.ubuntu.com/16372281
http:/paste.ubuntu.com/16372388

Thank you anyone who can help out.

wpgwpg · May 12, 2016

This is one of many reasons why you simply MUST make regular full system backups to an external hard drive. If you had, you could restore and be back up and running in under an hour. Since you apparently didn't do that, you're down in the weeds of a jungle of things, and may well end up having to restore to factory settings or reinstall Windows.

Good luck.

seanpf1 · May 12, 2016

wpgwpg :

wpgwpg: My drive is accessible and all my files are fine. Your reply was not needed since all you did was attempt to bash me for the situation. Dont you realize how negative and generally unhelpful you came across as?

please do not troll my thread. I need help, not rocks thrown.

seanpf1 · May 12, 2016

Here is a update on my situation. I've resolved some things (I think) but stuck at others.

So I have a lot going on here, unfortunately. Im trying to work through the issues but I've found myself stuck. I THINK that the issue in the title is now my problem as I have been able to fix my EFI boot partition, and from my untrained eye things appear to be correct, but I've noticed that my windows partition shows as 'unknown' in disk part and perhaps that is why my win7 is now getting stuck forever at the windows boot logo.

My original issue was posted here (for background) -

https://answers.launchpad.net/ubuntu/+question/293607

Since then, I've done a number of things, such as running Easy Recovery Essentials from NeoSmart, and obviously the windows recovery boot repair, endlessly along with ubuntu boot-repair in 16.02 LTS. A quick note, 14.02 LTS i saw a EFI error on boot, so i was thinking maybe that boot-repair wouldn't be able to correctly repair things unless the live cd was correctly launched in EFI mode. The same with recovery essentials, when i boot the cd it doesn't give me the UEFI option for booting the cd, so perhaps that also wont work for my EFI situation? My windows 7 does show UEFI at the boot and I did attempt to do all of the bootrec.exe commands in windows recovery cmd. The only part I could not do was the bootsect.exe /nt60 SYS /mbr command from this guide -

https://neosmart.net/wiki/fix-uefi-boot/#Fix_UEFI_Boot_in_Windows_7

Because it complained that I had to be in bios mode/non EFI mode to do it. When i booted win7 without UEFI, then win7 complained I cannot enter recovery environment because it needs to be EFI. Damned if you do, damned if you dont

But my understanding is that EFI does not use a MBR so im not sure how that is a relevant fix anyways?

I went from not being able to see the OS, to resolving that part by changing the ID of my windows partition located here -

http://superuser.com/questions/725322/issue-with-a-windows-7-boot-issue-involving-the-bcd-perhaps

Now the windows recovery environment see's my OS, but its location is "(Unknown)" at the first screen and "Unknown" in the 'type' column in disk part.

My most recent boot-repair attempt is located here -

http://paste2.org/9Gb5sUWn

The boot summary info prior to that attempted repair is here -

http://paste2.org/7Xt9jNFs

Im a little curious as to why my sda3 (windows install partition) was showing up as a EFI partition? In Gparted it shows as a ntfs partition, and I've of course ran all the chkdsk and other tools on it to ensure there's nothing wrong with it.

Im thinking changing the ID of the partition might have screwed with things, but when i ran bootrec /rebuildbcd I think it should have fixed it? When I first did it, it did see the os, but running bootrec /rebuildbcd it could not find the OS. Then I changed the ID on partition 3 and it found it.

I've also tried renaming bcd to bcd.old after changing attributes and then trying bootrec /rebuildbcd again, but it identifies "0" windows installations and I've noticed that there is no mounted windows OS during the windows recovery environment. Perhaps this is the issue? It see's the OS because at the very first screen after clicking 'repair windows' from the boot cd, it see's the OS (windows 7 professional) but just status location (Unknown).

I did all of that following this guide - http://pcsupport.about.com/od/fixtheproblem/ht/rebuild-bcd-store-windows.htm

Maybe it needs to be mounted before I can repair it? Not sure. Losing my mind over this

Here is a picture of what disk part shows currently -

http://imgur.com/SIIQ85j

The last windows repair attempt I've tried says its unable to repair the system and under the diagnosis and repair details I see "A patch is preventing the system from starting." under the "Software installation log diagnosis" section (there's a lot more but they are all error 0x0 which seems like no issues found)

System Disk =\Device\Hardisk0
Windows directory = \\?\GLOBALROOT\Device\HardiskVolume3\Windows

If you guys need me to generate any information please just advise what to do and I will supply with as much diagnostic info as needed. And if anyone is wondering, the data is fine on the partition, I can mount and access my windows partition in ubuntu or other explorers and transfer the data etc.

THANK YOU!

wpgwpg · May 14, 2016

Wow! I'm just trying to help you apply the ounce of prevention in the future.

Good luck.

seanpf1 · May 15, 2016

Just wanted to say that I got a resolution to my problem. If anyone happens upon this thread here was the solution -

http://superuser.com/questions/1076253/windows-7-partition-shows-as-unknown-in-disk-part-windows-recovery?answertab=votes#tab-top

It is unknown because you have entered an undefined partition type GUID.

What you have entered:

C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC930

While the correct type GUID for EFI System partition is:

C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

(0 vs B at the end)

In any case, you should use the following type GUID:

EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

which is Basic data partition in Microsoft Windows.

Since your disk is a GPT disk, you must use UEFI boot. There is no boot code from Windows that is capable of legacy booting a Windows installation on a GPT disk.

For UEFI boot, bootsect and bootrec is pretty much useless (except MAYBE bootrec /rebuildbcd), since UEFI boot is purely file-based (EFI binaries/executables), while bootsect/bootrec only deals with boot code on the MBR/boot sector.

If bootrec /rebuildbcd still doesn't help after you revert Partition 3 to Basic data partition, then you may consider bcdboot. You MIGHT want to delete \EFI\Microsoft under the ESP (Partition 1) first after you mount it with mountvol drive: /s (where drive: can be any available drive letter), or simply reformat it (FAT32) if it's not shared with Ubuntu or so. Then, run:

bcdboot X:\Windows

where X: is the drive letter of Partition 3 under the current environment (so check with diskpart or so first).

P.S. There is a high chance that the actual installation (on Partition 3) is broken or messed up. I suppose how to fix that depends on what error you see when you boot it (after you reinstall Windows Boot Manager and build a new BCD store with bcdboot X:\Windows from it).

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