Where is windows boot manager located?

[DCal430]

On my computer if I remove all of the HDD, windows boot manager comes up and says it can't find windows 7. Where the hell is windows boot manager located if not on the hard drive it self?

 

[lxskllr]

You must have another hd hooked up. A computer won't boot without bootable media, and it'll tell you that after POST.

 

[DCal430]

You must have another hd hooked up. A computer won't boot without bootable media, and it'll tell you that after POST.

The only other drive was an unpartitioned drive. The OS install didn't even touch that drive.

 

[lxskllr]

. The OS install didn't even touch that drive.

That you know of. Win7 is fond of putting it's bootloader on drives Win7 isn't installed on. Unhook that drive, and your message should go away.

 

[Gooberlx2]

Maybe a UEFI thing? But yeah, bootloader could be placed in the mbr of the other drive.

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

iirc, Windows 7 creates a 100MB hidden partition on the primary drive during setup. That's likely where the bootloader is.

 

[DCal430]

WTF, I never gave it permission to partition the other drive and do this. Who gave it this permission. But you are right it actually partitioned a part of the other drive and added the bootloader there.

 

[Ichinisan]

EFI

It has basically ruined my Media Center computer. I tried installing Win7 on an HDD, then disconnected it and installed Win8 on an SSD. Switched them back and my system keeps getting more and more messed-up with conflicting boot manager BS re-writing boot info on my hard drives. FUUUUUCK!

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

WTF, I never gave it permission to partition the other drive and do this. Who gave it this permission. But you are right it actually partitioned a part of the other drive and added the bootloader there.

Windows 7 tells you it is doing that during the install process but it's a brief message.

 

[DCal430]

Is their a way to view what is in this boot partition?

 

[TastesLikeChicken]

Bootable CD with NTFS file viewer.

 

[lxskllr]

Is their a way to view what is in this boot partition?

I don't know. With me knowing nothing, I'd boot to a GNU/Linux live cd, and poke around with that. What I think it contains is the bootloader, and a basic rescue environment for fixing a broken install.

 

[Gooberlx2]

WTF, I never gave it permission to partition the other drive and do this. Who gave it this permission. But you are right it actually partitioned a part of the other drive and added the bootloader there.

Is it the primary drive for the system? SATA port 0...or, god forbid, the "master" on a IDE cable?

The code in the MBR basically describes where the active partition with bootable data exists, as well as the partition table/layout on the drive.

I didn't realize win7 would put that hidden recovery partition on a drive separate from the OS drive. I guess that makes some sense though, assuming you'd be recovering the OS HDD if it tanked.

 

[JackMDS]

This will show the partition.

http://www.partitionwizard.com/free-partition-manager.html

This might help further (there is free version look at the end of the page).

http://neosmart.net/EasyBCD/

 

[lxskllr]

Here's what the Win8 boot partition looks like. This is from my vm, using a Bodhi cd image. I'm guesing Win7 is similar...

 

[WinOutreach2]

Using either EasyBCD as suggested by Jack, or the official Microsoft utility bootrec.exe included on the installation media, you could reconstruct the BCD for Windows 7 on the appropriate drive. There are instructions on using bootrec.exe provided by Microsoft here which provide the commands needed to create a new BCD and add your existing Windows installation. Be aware that it is best to perform these tasks with only the boot drive installed if you wish to maintain the ability to alter boot priority in BIOS or physically switch between hard drives.

Brandon
Windows Outreach Team- IT Pro
The Springboard Site on TechNet

 

[imagoon]

You can just go in to disk management and assign it a letter if you want to look. The only thing in there is the recovery console. Very useful 100MB partition.