software raid + missing partitons + none bootable os = 1 big mess!

[dosmond]

What a mess!
I was fooling around with my pc trying to create a software raid in windows 7,
that never worked, instead leaving my pc unbootable, I had to convert back
from dynamic disks to basic, to even to get my second os to boot (vista on another drive) how ever windows 7 was not being allowed to boot, in the process of getting
vista up and running a few partitions disappeared from both drives. NOT FUN!
they were partitions that held my games, movies, music, personal data ect.
I managed to get the partitions back on my vista drive with no data loss
by using a program called testdisk, and that data partition had enough free space
to allow another progam called EASEUS Data Recovery Wizard Professionalto copy the deleted partion data onto a now good partition onto the other drive, recreate the missing partition and then basically dump all the files back where they should be... fixed right? No... the only problem is my setup before this mess allowed me to boot from either drive the windows 7 drive is an internal drive. It has been left unbootable by itself, saying missing mbr press ctrl+alt+del to reboot. The vista drive is in workable condition, but its basically an external media drive, that I want seperate from my main drive, I was able to use a combo of VistaBootPRO and EasyBCD, to add windows 7 to the vista drives boot list so I can finally boot windows 7, and it works, but I want a new mbr on the windows 7 disk
so I don't need to be tied to a boot loader on another disk, I should be able to turn off' my external drive and windows 7 should be able to boot itself on its own drive...

I've used repair disk option from the windows 7 installation disk, it said repaired, but
will not boot, the partition is marked as healthy(boot, page file, active, primary partition) under windows, I've tried using the vistabootpro and easybcd programs to recreate the bootloader on windows 7 that did not work, even though the diagnostic in the progam show that it should work, it does not, I used the every step in this guide as well and everything I've listed above to try to correct this mess.
Recovering the Vista Bootloader from the DVD - NeoSmart Technologies Wiki
all of that failed as well, if I try to boot directly from windows 7 disk I get, missing mbr error... For some stange reason a reinstall repair from the windows 7 install disk will not work, I even went so far as to back up the windows 7 partition, flatten it, and reinstall windows 7 from scratch... guess what? it boots properly.... so I tried restoring windows 7 on top of the fresh install, thinking it may allow proper bootup... it failed, same issue I need to use my vista external drive to boot my windows 7 internal drive........

Anyone out there have a simple way to restore windows 7 to its proper bootable state.... I want it working, by itself, but my nerves are now shot, I thought I lost everything!

[MarkOne]

Honestly. with all the mess you have done, reinstall 7, back up your file on an other PC . or Buy a new drive an install 7 on it,

[frontier204]

By any chance was your external drive plugged in when you attempted to recover your bootloader? The bootrec /fixmbr has an annoying tendancy to put the boot MBR on the external drive rather than the drive that has the Windows you are trying to rescue... Try steps 1-3 of that bootloader recovery from that link you posted with ONLY the OS drive plugged in (unplug / disable your other hard drives if needed).

[KeepSix]

+1 to the above poster. I was doing this last night with Win 7/openSUSE. Disconnect all the other drives and start over. Or install a 3rd party loader (ie:GRUB) that allows you to customize the boot options

[dosmond]

Ok, this is very weird, even though I've already listed the steps I was trying before with no fix to the missing mbr press ctrl+alt+del to reboot issue, I examined a backup made by a fresh install of windows 7, the first thing I noticed is a file on the root of the drive called bootmgr, and it was missing on my non working windows 7 partition, so I copied it over onto the windows 7 partition, tried a reboot failed.... but the error went from missing mbr press ctrl+alt+del to reboot to file\boot\bcd status 0xc000000f... at least it was showing something?!? , I re-did the steps on the link above "manually repairing the vista bootloader"

1) bootrec.exe /fixmbr
2) x:\boot\bootsect.exe /nt60 all /force
3) del c:\boot\bcd .... ERROR COULD NOT FIND FOLDER??? continued anyway...
4) bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd

Rebooted pc ... and IT FINALLY WORKED!!!

I have my windows 7 installation fully working again and it's not relying on another drive to allow it to boot ... windows 7 and windows vista are now completely separate and finally working correctly