Why is Windows 7 not listed in "Start-up and Recovery" Options

Question

Today when I went into Control Panel -> System and Security -> System -> Advanced System Settings -> Start-up & Recovery Settings I saw that under "Default Operating System" there is nothing listed! I restarted and Windows 7 started-up fine. The only thing that I noticed was that there was a blank screen for about a minute or two before the Windows Loading screen when before Windows loaded instantly. I restarted a few times and the blank screen always shows for 1 - 2 minutes before the Windows Loading Screen.

How could this have happened? I haven't tried to install another OS. How can I fix it? Should I run fixmbr? Is this causing the Blank Screen?

I only have 1 OS installed (Windows 7)

Answer 1

Fixed the problem. On the "advice" from a friend, I set the active partition from the 100mb "System" to C:. Restarted, "Windows Boot Manager Failed to Load Windows". Inserted installation DVD and select "Repair your Computer". When it was searching OS's it came up and said I had a boot manager problem and do I want to repair it? I did and Windows loaded. I can see Windows 7 listed in the “Start-up and Recovery” Options. I can also now hibernate! (see this question). Windows boots instantly and is actually a lot snappier! I have no idea how this could have helped, but it did. The only problem is that the Windows Boot Screen is the old "Vista" style (i.e. just a progress bar at the bottom), so anyone knows how to fix this, then please say.

Answer 2

I'm speculating, but the fact Windows doesn't read anything, but still boots, could mean the Windows bootloader is somehow damaged or has been replaced? Any chance of a virus infection or damage?

You could try using something like EasyBCD (Info) and see what that thinks.

When I had my PC setup for Vista/Win7 dual boot and destroyed the Vista partition, my machine completely failed to boot because the Vista partition was the primary (and so I'd trashed all the bootloader, etc along with the partition - it was a bit of a facepalm moment...). Anyway, simply booting to my Win7 disk and using the StartUp Repair option did the job - it rebuilt everything that was needed on the Win7 partition. Might be worth a try.

Or, if you prefer to do things yourself rather than using a magic button, there's apparently a tool available in the recovery console to the same effect - see http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/