Solved Removed dual booted XP, "Reboot and select proper boot..."

sam97

Member
Member
Messages
20
Hi!
Alright, so I screwed up big time. I had Windows XP pre-installed (C:) when I bought the computer nearly 3-4 years ago.Then I dually installed Windows 7 to a logical partition (D:), and then experimentally installed Windows 8 Pro WMC (G:) to the last partition, which is currently the default. I needed some space, so I decided to remove Windows XP, and like an idiot, formatted the C: partition with GParted. Now I get the "Reboot and select proper boot device... or insert boot media in selected boot device and press a key" error. I used Windows 7 Repair disk, tried attempting repairs with Windows 8 Pro installation disk, tried changing partition flags (I don't even know what they are), tried a warez disk, but nothing works. Even the Win8 installation disk doesn't show any operating system installed. Also, my HDD is set as first boot priority in BIOS.

Any help is appreciated!

I attached a screenshot of my partitions from GParted.

Thanks in advance!

P.S. Although it is named Windows Developer Preview, the partition has Wndows 8 Pro WMC in it.
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot.png
    Screenshot.png
    21 KB · Views: 283

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
Windows 7 and Windows 8 is on a Logical Partition?
What partition is the windows xp is located(before deleted)?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 10 Pro x64
    Computer type
    Laptop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Lenovo Y520
    CPU
    Intel Core i5 7300HQ
    Motherboard
    OEM Lenovo
    Memory
    4GB DDR4-2400
    Graphics Card(s)
    NVIDIA GeForce GTX 1050
    Sound Card
    Realtek HD
    Monitor(s) Displays
    1 (2)
    Screen Resolution
    1920x1080
    Hard Drives
    Seagate 1TB 5400 RPM
    Keyboard
    OEM Lenovo
    Mouse
    Logitech G502 Proteus Core
    Internet Speed
    100 Mbps
    Browser
    Google Chrome
    Other Info
    PC:

    AMD Athlon X4 760K
    8GB DDR3-1866
    AMD Radeon RX 460
    Seagate 500 GB 7200 RPM
OS's will not boot from Logical Partitions.
By deleting the Windows XP partition, you also delete the boot files for Windows 7 & Windows 8.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Thank you guys for replying! MrShowdown, sda1 used to be XP, sda5 is Win7 and sda8 is Win8. Sda6 and sda 7 are just storage parrtitions.
And isn't there any way to bring back those boot files, theog?
I am also about to try some boot managers.........hope they help.......atleast to get in.
Thanks again!

EDIT:
Okay, so I tried the plop boot manager, and I get two options, "HDA Partition 1", and "HDB Partition 2". The former doesn't do anything but bring the screen back to the boot manager. The second one, however, attempts to start but shows the "BootMGR is missing" error. So I think if I am able to write a boot sector to sda2, then maybe it'll work. The question, really, is how. I might also be wrong. Please let me know if there is anything you have. And if this method will work, and how.
 
Last edited:

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
OS's will not boot from Logical Partitions.
By deleting the Windows XP partition, you also delete the boot files for Windows 7 & Windows 8.

If you convert the Windows 7 & Windows 8 partitions to primary, yes.

In the screenshot below, the boot files are installed to System Reserved partition.

Delete Win 7-003.PNG
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Thanks theog. Any ideas on how I can do that without accessing Windows? (Not really that tech savvy :p)
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Your boot flag is currently on SDA8. You could move it to SDA1, the only primary partition on the drive, and then do a startup repair 3 times, or an automatic repair for Windows 8.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
A'right! I tried theog's method. I set Windows7 and Windows 8 to primary partitions, although I couldn't make the XP partition logical. Then I set Windows 7 partition active. I restarted and got the "NTLDR is missing" error. So I booted the Win7 Repair disk and sent the fixmbr, fixboot, and fixbcd commands and chkdsk-ed C: and G: (Windows assigned Win7 to C: and formatted XP partition to F:). Then I did the startup repair. It asked me restart, and on restart, I get a black screen with an underlined cursor blinking. I tried the startup repair 3 - 4 times and it says there isn't anymore error.

Then I tried it with Win8 installation disk. I attempted repair but no good. One thing i noticed is that the disk gives me three operating systems to go on with, in the order, "windows boot manager", "windows 8 (recovered)", "windows 7 (recovered)". All of them lead to the black screen with the cursor.

In Plop Boot Manager, HDA Partition 1 gives nothing, HDB Partition 1 takes me to "BootMGR is missing" error (I'm guessing Win8). HDB Partition 2 takes me to the blank screen (Bootloader, maybe?). HDB Partition 4 takes me to "NTLDR is missing" error (Win7). There is no HDB Partition 3 (maybe the XP partition).

SaltGrass, after doing all of the above, the attached image is the current state. Note that sda1, sda2 and sda4 are primary.

If there is any way to get past the black screen...

Please, any help is appreciated. You can see how much data I vulnerable to lose.

Thanks again!
 

Attachments

  • Screenshot.png
    Screenshot.png
    21.1 KB · Views: 185

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
The Windows Boot Manager option, you mention, has me a little confused since that is normally an option given for a UEFI installed system. Any comments about that?

It looks like you have Windows 7, installed on the second partition and it is active. It should be noted, an EFI partition may also show with a Boot flag. When you boot, you say you have a option to a Windows 7 Recovered, and that should be the one you boot to.

But I think, a single blinking cursor will normally mean the boot is not being sent to the correct place.

But we need to narrow down the possibilities and concentrate on one OS only, it just confuses things when jumping around. And Windows 7 Startup repair attempts will normally need reboots between tries.

Edit: Also, if you says NTLDR is missing, the the Master Boot Record is looking for an XP type of boot. If it says Bootmgr is mission, then it is looking for a Windows 7/8 type of boot. I once had to run a Startup Repair 4 times to overcome an XP MBR. You can see how it might work in the link below.

Bootsect Command-Line Options
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
Uh....I really don't know what UEFI of EFI is. Anyways, when I tried to attempt repairs multiple times, it said that there were no errors. The logs had a final conclusion that Windows booted safely the previous time. This means that blinking cursor is obviously not from the Windows installations, but from that OS showing up as Boot Manager. There might be something that fixes a boot manager, or at the least bypasses it. Once we get into the installations, we might be able to wrap things up.

Thanks for the reply. I am really running out of options here. Anything people? Please feel free to come up with any kinds of ideas.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
Perhaps it is related to how your video output is set up? Maybe it is being directed to another type of output or a different resolution.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8.1 x64
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Home Grown
    CPU
    i7 3770K
    Motherboard
    ASUS P8Z77 -v Pro, Z87-Expert
    Memory
    16 G
    Graphics Card(s)
    EVGA GTX 680 Classified (2)
    Hard Drives
    Kingston SSD 240 GB
Boot Windows 8 DVD/USB.
Go to command prompt.
1. bootsect /nt60 all
2. bcdboot xXx:\windows
where xXx: is drive where Windows 8 is installed.

This will make you boot to Windows 8 if system is not demagged in any other way.

To add Windows 7 - use Visual BCD Editor, select "Create missing Windows loaders" on right click.
No parameters like drive, disk or whatever to specify.

If there are multiple unneeded loader entries in BCD - deleteing is easy, click on loader then DEL key.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    XP, Win7, Win8_Eval
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Notebook
    CPU
    Intel
Thanks boyans, but I caught your message after I did your procedure. Just done offering my "Thank you God" prayers! FINALLY, I can mark this thread solved and move on. Here's what I did, if anyone's interested.
After writing my last post, I followed post #10 by SaltGrass, the same thing what boyans said. That may have fixed the issue, because I started receiving this error on startup:

Windows Boot Manager
Windows failed to start. A recent hardware or software change might be the cause. To fix the problem:
1.insert windos cd and run a repair your computer option.
File: /boot/bcd
Status: 0xc000000f
Info: the boot configuration data for your PC is missing or contains errors.

So I tried the "3-4 times stratup repair" method, but it didn't work. I also tried bcdboot, no good. Then I noticed that it couldn't find /boot/bcd, most probably from the folder C:\Windows. So I looked it up and there wasn't any bcd in it. But there were bcd and boot.ini something in /Boot/EFI folder. So I copied them to the Boot folder. (This method may be unnecessary or idiotic. I still don't know what fixed my computer.)

Now, I didn't want to restart again for another try. I looked up bcdedit and found that C: was set for {bootmgr]. Then I don't know what I thought, but from Diskpart, I set Windows 8 as active and changed the device of bootmgr to H: (Windows 8). Then I rebuilt the bcd and it said it found a windows installation to add (unlike other tries, where it found 0 installations). I added it and VOILA! Everything is back to normal, except for the changes in the Partition letters.

Now my only question is, can I set Windows 7 back to active? Just my OCD compelling me. I'll do it if it isn't risky. Then I'll mark this thread solved.

Thank you guys. All of you were a great help. Here, take my thumb and add it to your rep. Thanks!
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
Thanks theog. Thank you all. Now I can go back to my miserable school life.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
Oh, one more thing. Can I reformat my XP drive, just asking?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
I needed some space, so I decided to remove Windows XP, and like an idiot, formatted the C: partition with GParted.

You already have.
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    ME, XP,Vista,Win7,Win8,Win8.1
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    Other Info
    Notebooks x 3

    Desktops x 5

    Towers x 4
If I ever have to again in my life ??? Directly asking, is the boot info in the xp drive?
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    Windows 8 Pro WMC
    Computer type
    PC/Desktop
    CPU
    AMD Athlon II X3
    Motherboard
    Digilite DL-960GM-GS3 FX
    Memory
    Transcend DDR3 4GB 1333 MHz
    Graphics Card(s)
    ATI Radeon 3000
    Monitor(s) Displays
    AOC
    Screen Resolution
    1366 X 768
    Hard Drives
    Seagate
    Mouse
    Odyssey
    Browser
    Firefox | Chrome
    Antivirus
    Malwarebytes | Windows Defender | Clamwin Portable
Windows boot files are always on active partition (system on UEFI).
 

My Computer

System One

  • OS
    XP, Win7, Win8_Eval
    System Manufacturer/Model
    Acer Notebook
    CPU
    Intel
Back
Top