boot - System Repair unavailable after moving Windows partition

07
2014-07
  • anustart

    After discovering that my System Reserved partition was much smaller than Microsoft recommends, I decided to use GParted to extend it with some of the unallocated space. Unfortunately, there was no unallocated space between the System Reserved and the Windows partitions. This meant I had to move the Windows partition to the right of the unallocated memory. The GParted manual told me that such an operation would require the MBR to be fixed using the Windows 7 installation disc. As I had already used the disc to fix the MBR a couple of times after installation of new storage, I started moving the partition right away.

    When the operation completed, I booted from the installation disc, entered my preferred localization settings, and clicked Repair your computer. However, the screen that hit me was not the usual system repair where I would select the correct Windows installation and so on. All the System Repair left me was frustration and a message saying

    This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of Windows.

    System Reapir was just fine right before the partitioning, and I knew perfectly well that I was using the correct disc. Unfortunately, there was no button saying "I caught your lie, now take me to the command prompt".

    TL;DR: Moved partition, System Repair doesn't work

    Is there anything that can make Windows bootable again?

    • Answers
  • anustart

    Go straight to the recovery console from the Windows installation disc by holding Shift and F10 simultaneously on the screen after localization options. Then you can use these two commands on recovery console:

    bootsect /nt60 all /mbr
bcdboot c:\windows /s a:

    Where c: is the Windows partition and a: is the partition marked as active. If there is no active partition you should mark the partition you resized as active. Change drive letters in command above according to your mappings.

    The select disk, list volume and list partition commands in diskpart.exe can be used to display partitions mappings.

    When Windows 7 is successfully booted, you can use a BCD manipulation utility such as Visual BCD Editor to examine/rename/delete boot entries.


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  • Toro

    My netbook came preinstalled with Windows 7. It also has a recovery partition. Do I still need to create separate system repair discs?


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  • Michael Kohne

    There usually isn't any way to boot directly from the recovery partition, that's what the system repair discs are for. Depending on the system, the recovery partition may or may not be essential for problem repair (thus, if you lose the HD you could be screwed).

    I personally take the alternative tactic of making a complete image (I boot linux from a CD and use an external hard disk to write the image to). This way I can always get back to factory state, even if the hard disk dies or whatever.