Recovering OS from corrupted partition table

[Larry Sabo]

I have a Win 7 Ultimate with no-longer-available programs installed on it that ran normally until I swapped the HDD to another PC and buggered the partition table somehow. The target PC appears to have a motherboard problem as the CPU fan goes ballistic after a few seconds. The HDD has over 62,000 power-on hours but is otherwise healthy. Couldn't get the HDD to boot on the i5 again no matter what I tried.

In the course of trying to fix the boot problems, the EFI partition disappeared and only the OS partition remains, overlapping the space previously occupied by the EFI partition. I recovered the contents of the OS partition using DMDE, fresh-installed Win 7 Ultimate on a new HDD, and tried to copy the recovered contents into the new drive OS partition using Linux. There were numerous permission issues during the copy process, which I just ignored. The new HDD with the old OS partition contents goes into startup repair but that fails.

Looking for suggestions on how to properly transfer the recovered OS contents into the fresh-installed surrogate OS partition without permission conflicts. Going to try UVK's script but need to copy the recovered OS partition data to a fresh partition on another drive for that to work, since a drive letter is required. I know others have taken this approach without using that new UVK scrip, so curious about how that is normally done.

 

[NviGate Systems]

Why not use an elevated command prompt within Windows PE and use xcopy to copy files over? I think xcopy supports copy all relevant permission.

On another note a quick and easy way to possibly get the system would would be to replace the main registry hive, I'm certain I did that once, once you replace the registry, essentially the "identity" of the PC will be of the old one. From there you should be able to manually copy files that are needed. The registry is essentially the most important thing aside from various files. If the registry is toast then your attempts to get the system backup up are toast.

 

[GTP]

Not sure if he's still on the Forums, but maybe @Alexey can help?

 

[Larry Sabo]

@NviGate Systems, thanks for the suggestions. I'll try them.

 

[mikeroq]

I've used Paragon Hard Disk Manager numerous times to correct boot issues. Mainly after cloning.

You can also do this manually. It's Windows 7 so lets assume MBR. Create a system partition before the main partition, mark it as active, and use bcdboot to create the boot files. Should boot right up.

I've done this various ways:
- Paragon
- Resizing main partition to create system partition before it
- Creating system and OS partition on new drive, then clone OS partition from old drive, then bcdboot
- Imagex to backup the partition to a .wim and restore to the new OS partition

 

[Larry Sabo]

I've used Paragon Hard Disk Manager numerous times to correct boot issues.

Just checked prices: Workstation license is $99 USD ("Perpetual") and Technician license is $599 USD ("Subscription," meaning yearly???). I'll try the Workstation license free for 30 days and see how that goes. Thanks for the suggestions. Which license do you use?

 

[Larry Sabo]

I managed to solve the system and Windows partition overlap by shifting the latter and creating a new system partition, and then ran bcdboot successfully. I can access the Windows partition contents without problem but when I try to boot, I get "No option to boot to." It's a GPT disk and the BIOS is set for Secure Boot, Legacy disabled, and Fast Boot disabled. BIOS looks pretty old so I'll update that and re-try.

Any other suggestions?

 

[Computer Bloke]

I've had a few similar situations where Macrium Reflect was able to help:

Fix Windows boot problems using Macrium rescue media

Macrium Software - the creators of Macrium Reflect backup, imaging and cloning software.

www.macrium.com

 

[Larry Sabo]

I've had a few similar situations where Macrium Reflect was able to help:

Yeah, me too. I've also had cases where it (the Fix boot problems feature) made things worse. So close yet so far.

 

[Joep]

In the course of trying to fix the boot problems, the EFI partition disappeared and only the OS partition remains, overlapping the space previously occupied by the EFI partition. I recovered the contents of the OS partition using DMDE, fresh-installed Win 7 Ultimate on a new HDD, and tried to copy the recovered contents into the new drive OS partition using Linux. There were numerous permission issues during the copy process, which I just ignored. The new HDD with the old OS partition contents goes into startup repair but that fails.

Too late now, but a screenshot of partitions TAB in DMDE might have revealed what was wrong and if in-place repair is possible.

 

[Larry Sabo]

@Joep, I do have DMDE screenshots of the "blended" partitions and a fresh install installation. However, as mentioned in post #7, I managed to split the merged partitions and can access the Windows partition and its contents without problem. Created a new system partition and ran bcdboot successfully. However, still can't boot.

Having spent three days on this, I've thrown in the towel and am prepared to just fresh install Win 7 Ultimate and restore his data from the now-accessible but unbootable original drive. However, now I see that the COA is for Win 10 Home (for refurbished PCs) and the product key is of course not valid for the Win 7 fresh install.

The only option left (if the customer can't come up with a valid Win 7 Ultimate license key) is to fresh install Windows 10, restore his files and call it a day. He is not at all a happy camper and I expect to see my first bad Google review soon. Nothing I can do when things go to hell on my watch, even if I did nothing to cause it, as far as I know.

 

[Porthos]

've thrown in the towel and am prepared to just fresh install Win 7 Ultimate and restore his data from the now-accessible but unbootable original drive. However, now I see that the COA is for Win 10

Of course, it was. I have seen very few (2 or 3) home users with a legit Ultimate. A legitimate Ultimate was cost prohibitive unless it came on the system from the OEM.

He is not at all a happy camper and I expect to see my first bad Google review soon.

Would not surprise me. One of those anti-Win 10 folks.
If he does, prepare an answer that calls him out on it in public for all to see it was not your problem.

 

[Porthos]

if the customer can't come up with a valid Win 7 Ultimate license key

He won't.

 

[Philippe]

What does "bcdedit /enum" show you?

 

[Larry Sabo]

@Porthos, yeah, I've never seen a legit Win 7 Ultimate licensed PC yet so was pretty sure I wasn't going to get sued over this. He has relented and I'm now installing Win 10, then I'll restore his user data to that. Turns out he has another Win 7 PC that runs these programs, so he can transfer his projects/data to that PC from the Win 10.

I hate it when I bugger something or something gets buggered on my watch through no fault of my own. I have no idea what made the drive unbootable and will practice transferring an OS to another drive on another PC, so I don't get so flustered next time this happens.

@Philippe, I am re-using his drive for the Win 10 install so too late to try your suggestion. Thanks anyway.

 

[Markverhyden]

@Porthos, yeah, I've never seen a legit Win 7 Ultimate licensed PC

I've seen a few, as in legit, of them but they were always major OEM's. Specifically Dell and HP models.

 

[johnrobert]

In all the computers I have seen with Ultimate non of the people understood or needed it, I guess it looked cool to have ultimate also being free

 

[sapphirescales]

Turns out he has another Win 7 PC that runs these programs, so he can transfer his projects/data to that PC from the Win 10.

Time to have him bring in that other PC, image it, and upgrade it to Windows 10 so if anything else goes wrong with that computer you'll have an image of it that can easily be restored to dissimilar hardware. Windows 7 is a PITA when it comes to getting it to boot on different hardware.

I have a Win 7 Ultimate with no-longer-available programs installed on it that ran normally until I swapped the HDD to another PC and buggered the partition table somehow.

This is why if you're going to do anything like that it's a good idea to image it first. If I got a PC on my bench with 62,000 hours on the HDD I would immediately image the drive and recommend a replacement drive/computer. If the client didn't want to do that then I'd just hand them back the machine and tell them good luck.

If you ever get in this position again and the client doesn't have another computer with the software on it, I recommend Todo PC Trans Technician. It's expensive but it allows you to transfer everything, including programs, from an unbootable hard drive to a new computer. You can even transfer programs from an older OS (like Windows 7) to a newer OS.

Alternatively you can use LapLink PCMover Technician. The initial cost of this software is way less but I haven't had as much success with this software:

PCmover® Business by Laplink® | Trusted by Organizations Worldwide

Automatically deploy, upgrade, and replace PCs for maintenance and break/fix scenarios with PCmover — the only Intel and Microsoft-recommended PC migration solution.

business.laplink.com

I hope you don't get a bad review from this but I also hope you've learned your lesson. If you're going to do something that has the potential to modify data on a drive, image it first. Can't tell you how often this has saved my bacon. The imaging software I now recommend is active@ Disk Image. I've been using it for over a year now and it has a 100% success rate when it comes to making/restoring images. It's also very fast. I can make an image of even old slow hard drives in under 15 minutes so long as the user has less than 100GB of data. SATA SSD's are obviously around 2-3x faster, and m.2 SSD's are at least 5x faster, the only limitation being my USB connection speed.

 

[Larry Sabo]

Time to have him bring in that other PC, image it

@sapphirescales, thanks for your suggestions. I've already told him to image the drive of the second PC. He's technically competent enough to do that. Not sure I want his future business, to be honest.

Todo PC Trans Technician. It's expensive...

Yeah, too expensive for me, given how seldom I would use it. Good to know about, anyway.

I now recommend is active@ Disk Image

I've had that lying around for years on my old 32-bit back-up PC. I've been using HDClone 9 (from your earlier recommendation) and it has worked flawlessly. No, I won't update it to an earlier version. If it disappoints, I'll consider Active@Disk Image again.

Cheers

 

[sapphirescales]

I've been using HDClone 9 (from your earlier recommendation) and it has worked flawlessly.

I have HDClone 9 too. It's still good but I could tell it was getting worse so that's why I decided to try active@ Disk Image. I pirated HD Clone 10 and it was even worse. I haven't tried X.3 which is their latest version. I still use HDClone 9 when working with Mac OS images on Windows but the failure rate of HDClone 9 is much higher than older versions (version 5 was my favorite). I might revisit X.3 if I can ever find a pirated version of it. I won't buy software that I know will probably suck without trying it first.

He's technically competent enough to do that. Not sure I want his future business, to be honest.

Yeah, "technically competent" clients usually suck. They only want you to do a half assed job because they want to do part of it themselves. Then if/when they run into trouble they expect you to tell them how to fix it for free. I refuse to work with these types of people. I tell them that if I work on a computer it's all or nothing. I won't, for example, build a computer and sell it without an OS so they can load some pirated version of Windows on it then blame me when the thing has stability problems and blue screens from improper drivers.

I just got a call today from some idiot who tried to replace the screen on his MacBook and it didn't work, so he wants me to diagnose it and put it back together for him and try to get his knockoff screen from Amazon working. No thanks. I won't work on a computer that someone else has messed with. Once you touch a computer, everything that happens from then on is your fault.

It doesn't happen often but sometimes an idiot will come in with a box full of laptop parts and ask us to put it back together because he took it apart to replace something and he couldn't figure out how to get it all back together properly. That's a big NOPE from me!