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After MBR Recovery - Windows Does Not Boot

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I'm trying to recover my Win 7 System Drive on a Dell XPS 9100 on a new drive, using ATI 2016.  

I walked through the steps, which indicated recovering all partitions (excluding MBR), before recovering the MBR partition.  Everything seemed to work and the system  booted to Windows okay.  I didn't test any programs.  But, I restarted ATI and recovered the MBR partition.

Since then, I get the following message:

"Windows Boot Manager

Windows failed to boot.   A recent hardware or software change might be the cause.  To fix the problem:" insert Windows installation disc, etc.

Unfortunatelty, I don't have my original windows disc.  I made a bootable USB recovery stick some time ago, but it doesn't seem to work (unable to boot).

I'm not sure what to do.  I am considering wiping the new drive and starting again.

Any tips would be appreciated.

 

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Bruce, have you tried going into your BIOS settings and checking that the Boot sequence / order is pointing correctly?  If you are using MBR (aka Legacy) then your new disk drive should be in the boot order, or else if using EFI then it should show Windows Boot Manager.

The MBR should be safe to restore when recovering to a new disk drive but isn't normally needed if recovering to the same disk drive where the backup image was taken from.

If you have another Windows 7 system, you could follow the guidance in webpage: Create a system repair disc to make repair media instead of needing the installation disc.

In addition to verirying the boot order in the bios, it's possible the hard drive is locked (something that can happen if a system has an active hibernation file when a backup is taken).  Try booting into safemode with F8.  Can you get into Windows under safe mode without the missing boot device message?  If so, then you should be able to boot back into Windows normally after that. 

Thanks Steve:

I double-checked my boot order and I saw my new disk in the boot order.  I didn't see an option for EFI in the BOIS setup - so I assumed that it was MBR.  

But, I did notice that the error message that I got had the title "Windows Boot Manager" at the top of the screen.  So, now I'm not so sure.

I re-ran the recovery process, but didn't do the MBR recovery step and it appears to have recovered everything and my computer boots.

If MBR isn't necessary, I'll leave it as is.

Cheers,

Bruce

 

Thanks Bobbo:

I couldn't get any response when I tried F8 Safe Mode.  

As noted in my reply to Steve - I re-ran the recovery without the MBR recovery and everything seems to be okay.

Cheers,

Bruce

Glad it's working.  You might want to try safemode now to see if that is workign.  I've had some weirdness with dells not wanting to enter safemode when the disk is (was) locked either.   F8 is supposed to be baked into the Dell bios and should work though.

Bruce C wrote:

Thanks Steve:

I double-checked my boot order and I saw my new disk in the boot order.  I didn't see an option for EFI in the BOIS setup - so I assumed that it was MBR.  

But, I did notice that the error message that I got had the title "Windows Boot Manager" at the top of the screen.  So, now I'm not so sure.

I re-ran the recovery process, but didn't do the MBR recovery step and it appears to have recovered everything and my computer boots.

If MBR isn't necessary, I'll leave it as is.

Cheers,

Bruce

I missed that note above - it probably is UEFI.  You can verify by opening system information and looking for the "bios mode".  You should also be able to tell by the parition layout in disk management.  More details and screenshots here:  https://www.eightforums.com/tutorials/29504-bios-mode-see-if-windows-boot-uefi-legacy-mode.html

Last, check out my screenshots from a Dell 5510 that is legacy/UEFI capable and how you can verify how it is set in the bios and how to boot your recovery media to make sure you boot it correctly if/when you need to.  https://forum.acronis.com/forum/121829#comment-378318