Restore a bootloader in Windows

[Estiar]

So, uh, I deleted my bootloader on accident. Windows has a happy habit of placing its bootloaders on other drives, so when I formatted a drive, it killed Windows. Right now, I'm without a Microsoft OS, so I need a different method than what I've used in the past. I can still boot into Ubuntu. I tried using an installation media, but it couldn't find Windows.

[GorujoCY]

31 minutes ago, Estiar said:

So, uh, I deleted my bootloader on accident. Windows has a happy habit of placing its bootloaders on other drives, so when I formatted a drive, it killed Windows. Right now, I'm without a Microsoft OS, so I need a different method than what I've used in the past. I can still boot into Ubuntu. I tried using an installation media, but it couldn't find Windows.

use Ubuntu to grab the data to back them up and reinstall Windows then recover the files from there, if the data is still there.

 

Did you do a full wipe of the drive?

[BobVonBob]

Do you have a partition to install the bootloader to? If not, you'll need to make one. If you have space on the Windows drive make it there. If you don't, make it on another drive so you can boot into Windows, shrink a partition in Windows, and then install the bootloader again to that partition.

 

Once you've got that, follow the steps here: http://woshub.com/how-to-repair-uefi-bootloader-in-windows-8/ It walks you through the process of recreating a bootloader once you've booted into install media. Just skip all the automatic recovery steps, it doesn't even work at the best of times, let alone with a missing bootloader.

 

If that doesn't work, boot into Ubuntu, copy important files, and reinstall. It sucks to do, but it's better than not having a working computer.

[Estiar]

Cool ! Got it working. I put it on the proper drive. It gave me an excuse to switch to UEFI. I used another guide on the site for MBR.

[PianoPlayer88Key]

One thing I usually do to avoid situations like that (where Windows puts its bootloader on other drives) is to make sure that the drive I'm installing Windows on is the ONLY drive connected to the system.

 

I've had interesting bootloader on one drive, redirect to other drive issues now and then sometimes ... for example my main Windows install might be on an SSD, but I might have cloned it to a HDD (an exact bit-for-bit, sector-by-sector clone, which includes cloning the UUID) ... then when I have that HDD plugged in, even though I specifically tell it to boot from the SSD, it ends up running the WIndows on the HDD.