Windows – Restore Win 7 MBR without Recovery/Install Disc

gpartedmbrwindows 7

Here is what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to switch my Primary OS drive from a larger hard drive (1TB) to a smaller hard drive (64GB SSD). All my data only totals up to +/- 35GB, which should fit on the SSD fine.

So I did some research and was able to get Sysrescuecd on a USB and boot into that to resize my 1TB partition to 45GB. I was then able to copy the parition (resized to fill the drive) to the SSD. (All done through gParted).

I know that the MBR has not been copied (for good reason), and I know that the SSD won't boot without it. So I launch up testdisk and was able to write the Test Disk MBR to the SSD.

This has allowed me to boot the SSD with the test disk MBR and prompt me "1234F:" to select which partition to try to boot from. When I select 1, it will boot to my Windows 7 partition fine.

Now I want the standard Windows MBR restored onto the hard drive, but I cannnot find the bootrec file from within Windows 7. (And I can't seem to find my install/recovery disc).

Are there any methods to restore the standard Windows 7 MBR from within Windows 7 or any method without using the Windows 7 Install/Recovery disc?

Any help is much appreciated.

Thank you!

Best Answer

Download mbrfix from http://www.sysint.no/products/Download/tabid/536/language/en-US/Default.aspx

This is a small, handy CLI tool. Then just run

 ./MbrFix.exe /drive 0 fixmbr /yes
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