How to repair a Windows 7 Dual Boot computer after a hard drive failure These instructions will show you how repair and change a Dual Boot computer back to a Single Boot system if your primary Windows 7 hard drive has failed, has been removed or formatted.
During the boot process you see the following error message: “DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT DISK AND PRESS ENTER”.
Scenario 1: Your installed Windows 7 to the only hard drive on your computer. Later you purchased a new hard drive and installed another version of Windows 7 to the new and now second hard drive in your PC. You now have a “Dual Boot” computer.
At some point later in time the original drive or primary hard drive fails or is so badly corrupted it must be replaced, therefore you remove it and now find the computer can longer boot to the remaining version of Windows 7.
Scenario 2: You decide you no longer have the need to dual boot and want to use your original and possibly slower hard drive for data storage only so you reformat the drive.
In either of these two scenarios when you boot your computer you see the following error message: “DISK BOOT FAILURE, INSERT DISK AND PRESS ENTER”.
How to repair and reboot to Windows 7: First disconnect any external and internal “non Windows” hard drives, leaving only the remaining Windows hard drive (that you are unable to boot) connected. Now follow the instructions below.
If you are using your Windows 7 installation DVD to perform a System Recovery follow these instructions.
If you are using the System Repair Disc you created then follow these instructions.
Notes: 1) The Windows 7 System Repair environment will not be able to fix all the issues in one session and multiple reboots will be required as a result of the radical changes made by the loss, removal of or deleting Windows 7 from your primary drive. The primary drive is defined as the drive that contains the BCD Store and bootmgr file. This drive is usually the drive the first Windows operating system was installed on.
2) This procedure is somewhat complex therefore at the end of each illustrated guide I have provided a link to a text only copy which you should print and use to check mark each step after it has been performed.