Odd issue - bootloader is on external drive

[Yuriman]

I can't believe I didn't notice it before today. Apparently when I installed Win7 several weeks ago it put the bootloader on my external 500gb drive ( I: ) rather than on my C: drive. I have no idea why this might have happened, but it seems I can't boot without my external drive connected. Any suggestions?

 

[Fox5]

Boot from the windows 7 cd, and go to the recovery console and type fixmbr and fixboot.

 

[doan]

fixmbr and fixboot should fix it. Make sure you boot with the external disconnected when running them. Then reboot with the external connected and set the boot drive in the bios, or it will continue to boot off the external. When installing windows its a good idea to allways only have the target drive connected.

 

[Yuriman]

How do you get to the recovery console on the Windows 7 disk?


http://windows.microsoft.com/en-US/windows-vista/What-happened-to-the-Recovery-Console

Article claims recovery console was removed from Vista (and I assume 7). I tried running the "fix boot problems" automated recovery thing, and it said "problem found and fixed", but didn't actually fix anything.

How do you get to the "recovery console"?

 

[Fox5]

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/681-startup-repair.html
You want to choose the command prompt option.

 

[Yuriman]

Fixmbr and fixboot are not valid commands.

What am I missing?

EDIT: I think someone missed the part about bootrec.exe

 

[Yuriman]

Ok,

bootrec.exe /fixmbr
- operation completed successfully

bootrec.exe /fixboot
-element not found

bootrec.exe /scanos
-total identified installations: 1
-[1] c: \windows
-operation completed successfully

bootrec.exe /rebuildbcd
-total identified installations: 1
-[1] c: \windows
-add to boot list? y/n/a
-element not found



???? What does it mean by "element not found"? This did not fix it.

 

[Yuriman]

Fixed!

Some google'ing suggested I check if my partition was active - it was not. After fixing that, I re-ran bootrec.exe. This did not fix it, even though it didn't give "element not found" this time. So, I opened the Windows 7 recovery again after rebooting, and ran the boot repair. Reboot, -> bootmgr is missing. Run Windows 7 recovery again, reboot, works.


I appreciate the help.