Dual Boot nuked by a possible virus

J

Josh97

n00b
Joined
Mar 29, 2009
Messages
22
Hi,

On a dual boot system, still testing the waters with Win7 so the configuration is as follows:

C: WinXP
D: Win7

Primary partition is C and its Boot folder was located in C.
The problem is that somehow the whole C:\Boot was deleted, I'm guessing a virus cleanup gone wrong. System Recovery was off.

Whenever I try to boot, the "An error occurred while attempting to read boot configuration" shows up and I can only restart.
I've used the Win7 DVD, which doesn't see the partition with Win7 already installed and attempts to install it from the beginning. I'm also unable to use the recovery console since it goes straight to Setup.

I've used the Hiren Boot CD with WinXP Mini and am able to access all data on hdd. I've tried to copy the contents from D:\Boot and Windows\Boot like the bootmgr to C:\Boot and I'm getting an extra option at startup to check memory but still it reboots continuously.

Does anyone know what kind of files should I copy in the Boot folder located on C: in order to have the full boot selection back at startup?

A lot of thanks, am pretty much out of ideas.
Josh
 
the Win7 bootloader takes over. So every time you got the "Select which OS to boot" was actually coming from the Win7 install; not XP.
 
Yes, but I don't get that option at all, it only tells me boot is missing and have to restart.
 
Josh97 said:
Yes, but I don't get that option at all, it only tells me boot is missing and have to restart.
Click to expand...

ah.. right. I forgot Win7 installs the boot on the primary drive/partition.
 
j-sta, thanks a lot anyway!

Something changed and now I get this message after copying those some other folders, basically the whole windows\boot from Win7 partition:
"The boot selection failed because a required device is inaccessible"
 
have you tried repairing the MBR?
you would need a boot disk... but that might be a shot to atleast get back into WinXP. And from there, there's the EasyBCD tool that can be used to edit the BCD for Win7.

Unfortunately when it comes to the MBR, boot records, etc, it's not always as easy as copying files :(

edit: actually, pop in your WinXP cd and load the Recovery Console. Then do a fixmbr then fixboot.
 
Thanks, j-sta, I've followed your guide and it works now, it fixed the mbr and boot! Awesome
 
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