Corrupt Boot Cnfg

Cloning is a risky process (see Grover's True Image Guides)

You should consider backing up your SSD to your other disk and use ATI to restore the image you prefer when you need it. Backing up with a disk image is much safer and flexible than cloning (which is a bit to bit copy of a disk to an other).

It is relatively easy to fix your boot problem.
0) Remove the E: disk (the one you cloned to)
1) Check the partitions of your SSD.
- Using the win recovery CD, go to repair, launch a command prompt.
- Type DISKPART, then LIST DISK, you will see the list of your disks. Find the SSD (let's say it is disk 0).
- Type SELECT DISK 0, LIST PARTITIONS. Look at the list of partitions.
- If you see a system reserved partition, take note of it. If not, you should see the system partition anyway.

2) Mark a partition active. Still within DISKPART
- If you have a system reserved partition,
+ type SELECT PARTITION x (x being the number for that partition),
+ type ACTIVE,
+ type LETTER=D,
+ select PARTITION y (being the system partition)
+ type INACTIVE
- If you don't have a system reserved partition,
+ type SELECT PARTITION y (y being the number for the sole system partition),
+ type ACTIVE,

3) Repair the boot files. http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/en-us
From the same command prompt:
- Type BCDEDIT /export ?:\BCD_Backup where ? is the active partition you just set up above. This backs up your BCD, just in case.
- Type ?:
- Type CD BOOT
- Type ATTRIB BCD -s -h -r
- Type REN ?:\boot\bcd bcd.old
- Type BOOTREC /RebuildBcd
Reboot

4) If it doesn't work, try the repair startup option from the DVD again.

5) Once you have rebooted. Go to disk management:
- If you have a system reserved partition, remove the letter you assigned to it to keep it hidden. This partition should now be no letter, primary, system, active
- The c system partition should be primary, boot, page file, crash dump
\
Voila.

Thanks so much for your help, but still having some problems as can't get all the commands to execute properly.

LIST DISK - displays my SSD= Disk 0

LIST PARTITION - displays PARTITION 1 - PRIMARY

I believe this indicates that I don't have a system reserved partition - right?

Dropping down to the instructions where you don't have a system reserved partition:

SELECT PARTITION 1 - Displays "Partition 1 is now the selected partition"

ACTIVE - Displays "Diskpart marked the current partition as active"

This is where I start to have problems:
BCDEDIT /export 1:\BCD_Backup - This just scrolls the menu options or functions, no indication of backup actually taken place

1: - This just scrolls the same menu options as above

CD BOOT - Same results, just scrolls menu options

Can't get past the backup of BCD, rest of commands don't work - any help appreciated?

Scott:

Are you running the commands in an elevated command prompt window? In the Windows 7 Start/Search box type "cmd", then right-click on CMD.exe and choose "Run as administrator" to open an elevated command prompt window.

No problem running the commands DISKPART, SELECT DISK, LIST PARTITION, ACTIVE , but when I try to execute the BCDEDIT, as instructed above, it just scrolls the help menu, also 1:, CD BOOT just scroll the help menu.

This is on my home PC where I have all administrator rights. As explained above, I'm using the Win recovery CD, repair, launch a command. You don't get a Win 7 Start/Search box.

Scott:

Sorry to have overlooked the fact that you're running the Windows 7 recovery CD. You're correct - the command prompt window that opens on the recovery CD is an elevated command prompt window.

It sounds to me like you don't have a \Boot folder on the disk. To be able to boot, the file bootmgr, and the folder \Boot must reside on the active partition. Could you check both disks to see what happened to these files? Do it by booting the PC from the Windows 7 recovery CD while both the SSD and the external eSATA 500 GB disk are attached. Look for the files by switching to each disk in turn and listing a directory. Be aware that the recovery environment may assign different drive letters to the disks than you are used to - just ignore that but make a note of which drive letter is assigned to the SSD and which is assigned to the eSATA disk while booted from the recovery CD.

In this example I'll make an assumption that the SSD has been assigned letter D: and the eSATA is E:, but just use the correct letters if my assumption is incorrect. First figure out the drive letter assignments using DOS commands (in bold) where {enter} means to press the Enter key:

Switch to drive C --> C: {enter}
Switch to the root directory of C: --> cd \ {enter}
List the contents of the directory --> dir /a {enter}

Repeat the above for disk D:, then again for disk E:

After you have determined which drive letter belongs to which disk, then look for the boot files. The following is a view of what you should see (I'm illustrating a backup of my system partition that is mounted on drive Z: in this example):

Z:\>dir /a
Volume in drive Z is Boot
Volume Serial Number is 0E3F-4067

Directory of Z:\

09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> Boot
07/13/2009 08:38 PM 383,562 bootmgr
09/05/2009 07:34 PM 8,192 BOOTSECT.BAK
01/30/2011 07:38 PM <DIR> RECYCLER
01/30/2011 06:00 AM <DIR> System Volume Information
2 File(s) 391,754 bytes
3 Dir(s) 235,794,432 bytes free

Z:\>cd Boot

Z:\Boot>dir /a
Volume in drive Z is Boot
Volume Serial Number is 0E3F-4067

Directory of Z:\Boot

09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> .
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> ..
01/30/2011 05:07 AM 28,672 BCD
01/30/2011 05:07 AM 25,600 BCD.LOG
09/05/2009 07:34 PM 0 BCD.LOG1
09/05/2009 07:34 PM 0 BCD.LOG2
09/05/2009 07:34 PM 65,536 BOOTSTAT.DAT
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> cs-CZ
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> da-DK
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> de-DE
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> el-GR
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> en-US
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> es-ES
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> fi-FI
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> Fonts
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> fr-FR
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> hu-HU
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> it-IT
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> ja-JP
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> ko-KR
07/13/2009 08:20 PM 485,440 memtest.exe
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> nb-NO
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> nl-NL
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> pl-PL
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> pt-BR
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> pt-PT
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> ru-RU
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> sv-SE
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> tr-TR
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> zh-CN
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> zh-HK
09/05/2009 07:34 PM <DIR> zh-TW
6 File(s) 605,248 bytes
26 Dir(s) 235,794,432 bytes free

Z:\Boot>

When you list the directory of your main Windows partition you will see a lot more files and folders than I've illustrated here. Mine is a short list since it is of the small System Reserved partition. The highlighted files and folder are the ones required for booting; bootmgr and the Boot folder, with the BCD inside of the Boot folder.

What do you see on your two disks?

It looks like pilot error - I'm pretty sure the clone process went the wrong direction, that is to say I believe I cloned the formatted blank external HD onto my C: SDD drive that had my OS & programs on it - that explains the loss of the boot files. I thought I was being very careful, but I think this is what happened. I don't suppose there is any way to reverse the process or even a log file created of the cloning process that I could access? I also thought there might have been some warning about cloning a blank disk onto your disk containing your OS, but I guess not.

It looks like just what I was trying to prevent, not having a backup of my OS & program disk, has happened due to my own stupidity. In searching this forum for the possibility of recovering my OS & programs, it looks pretty tough and probably better to start all over and load Win 7 back on and start getting my application programs loaded back - what a huge headache.

Scott:

If that's what happened and you have no other backup then I'm afraid that you're correct - you'll need to start over with a reinstall. You're not the first to accidentally clone in the wrong direction. This is one of the reasons that most of us recommend imaging instead of cloning.

After you get back up and running, use True Image to create an image of your disk, which is a file that you can save somewhere, like on a USB external disk. If disaster strikes you can then restore the image to your disk, even if it's completely blank, and thus recover your operating system to the state that it was in at the time that the image was created. The image file will persist, meaning that you can do a restore more than once if something goes wrong.

I saw your newer posts. So it looks like you are going to reinstall.

Scott MacButch wrote:

Thanks so much for your help, but still having some problems as can't get all the commands to execute properly.

This is where I start to have problems:
BCDEDIT /export 1:\BCD_Backup - This just scrolls the menu options or functions, no indication of backup actually taken place

1: - This just scrolls the same menu options as above

CD BOOT - Same results, just scrolls menu options

Can't get past the backup of BCD, rest of commands don't work - any help appreciated?

For BCDEDIT, you first have to exit DISKPART (type exit in DISKPART), then when you type BCDEDIT you have to use the partition letter now, not the partition number you had within DISKPART

For example: BCDEDIT /export C:\BCD_Backup
Sorry about the confusion.