Repair windows bootmanager from within windows

Question

How would I repair the mbr from within windows? I installed Ubuntu onto a second partition. I want to delete said partition as my need for a linux distro has now passed. Once I delete that partition grub will go broke. I know I can do this from the recovery console but I want to try from windows itself. I know in XP I could fdisk /mbr and in 7 I technically would use bcdedit but that output looks scary in my other Windows 7 machine.

Answer 1

It looks like the EasyBCD utility will do the trick. It says "Windows Vista", but the bootloader is the same in Vista and Windows 7.

You can download it here: http://neosmart.net/dl.php?id=1

There's an option under "Manage Bootloader" to "Reinstall the Vista Bootloader".

Good luck.

Answer 2

If you still have the Ubuntu OS running, there might be a backup of the original MBR somewhere already. My Slackware puts it in /boot/boot.800. I could restore it with dd if=/boot/boot.800 of=/dev/sda count=1 bs=512 The /dev/sda assumes it's on the first SATA or scsi drive, if it's on second drive it'd be /dev/sdb, etc. Old ESDI drives would be /dev/hda etc.

Answer 3

Windows 7 has fdisk /fixmbr and fdisk /fixboot to fix your MBR and bootsector. It should reinstall your Windows bootloader. You must, however, perform this from a Recovery console. To use this, insert your Windows install disc, reboot and choose (R)epair during setup.