Wiped original HDD, now SSD won't boot

[wakuritz]

My pc originlly had Windows XP SP3 installed on a 250GB HDD, but I recently upgraded the mobo, CPU, RAM and installed a SSD. I installed Windows 7 Ultimate on the SSD and things worked great. I still had XP on the HDD and needed to manually select which version of Windows to use after the BIOS screen during startup, but that was getting old and XP was wasting space on my HDD. I moved all important documents onto a thumb drive and attempted to format the HDD, but W7 wouldn't allow it saying something about a partition. I ignored it and ran CCleaner's Drive Wiper, and now I can't boot at all. I now know that was a boneheaded move, and I don't need anyone to tell me this. I need to know if there is any way to get my SSD to boot W7 without having to re-install it. I have important things on my SSD that I CANNOT loose if at all possible.

To eliminate the basics, I've already configured the SSD as the primary boot drive in BIOS and removed the HDD from the system. With the HDD present, I get "Operating system not found" just after the BIOS screen.

Any help would be greatly appreciated. Im having to use my wife's cluttered and bug-ridden laptop, and it's a miserable experience. I need my PC back for work purposes.


ASRock Extreme4
Intel G620
G.Skill Ares 2x4GB @ 1600 C9
Samsung 830 128GB
Seagate 250GB 7200

My opticals are IDE, therefore incompatible with the Extreme4. I'm hoping the W7 disc won't be needed. If so, please include advice on how to convert whatever is needed onto a thumb drive.


Thank you in advance.

William

 

[wakuritz]

I made a new W7 bootable thumb drive, booted from it and no OS is listed under "System Recovery Options" when attempting to repair. If I don't hear from anyone by midday tomorrow, I'll just remove the SSD, place it in another PC, remove all important info then reformat and start over. This truly isn't the desired result, but as I said in the original post, I work from this PC and need it back in working order.

If anyone has an idea for correcting this booting issue, please say so. It's a unique situation that I've yet to see anyone report while searching every nook, cranny and corner of the internet.

I'm led to believe that some pertinent boot information was stored on my HDD when I performed the clean installation of W7 on my SSD. How this could happen is beyond me. I installed W7 from XP, if that is relevant.

 

[joe_newbuilder]

The trick of the matter was that you had a dual boot system. It sounds like the bootloader, the small piece of software that lets windows know where important files are located was on the hdd.

Can you reinstall the HDD? That would get things working right quick.
Other wise you will have to use the windows7 installation dvd to boot. On my system it took numerous reboots by the automatic repair program but at the end I had windows 7 working 100% from my SDD

 

[JustChris]

I had the same issue a few months ago. Two hard drives (one XP one 7), formated the XP drive to install windows 8 preview and bam, no OS detected. Basicly, you deleted your Master Boot Record which tells the BIOS where the OS files are.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392#method1

You'll have to create a copy of the windows 7 DVD on a thumb drive, boot from it into Recovery Environment, then restore the MBR. Should be good after that, my OS selection screen now reads something like "Windows 8" and "Windows 7 (Recovered)." Hope that helps, I know it can be frustrating when it used to work fine.

 

[DarkSable]

That sounds like, during Win7 installation, pieces of the OS got installed on the HDD. Only way to prevent that would have been having the hard drive unplugged during installation.

Windows Repair or a reinstall with just the SSD should fix it.

 

[wakuritz]

I had the same issue a few months ago. Two hard drives (one XP one 7), formated the XP drive to install windows 8 preview and bam, no OS detected. Basicly, you deleted your Master Boot Record which tells the BIOS where the OS files are.

http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html

http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392#method1

You'll have to create a copy of the windows 7 DVD on a thumb drive, boot from it into Recovery Environment, then restore the MBR. Should be good after that, my OS selection screen now reads something like "Windows 8" and "Windows 7 (Recovered)." Hope that helps, I know it can be frustrating when it used to work fine.

This would likely correct my issue if Windows 7 would show up as an OS on step 3 of the first link. No OS is displayed. I'm able to get to the command prompt, but after attempting all advice given so far, I'm unable to repair the OS that "doesn't exist."

To joe_newbuilder; My HDD is in RAW format now. When I wiped it, all data was removed. Placing it in the system renders the same result.

I do appreciate you guys' effort to assist, but it's becoming more apparent that a clean installation would be best in this situation. I just don't like the thought of spending the day updating Windows.

I'll have the next few hours to receive more advice before lugging my daughter to my mother's home, so feel free to chime in if anyone has an idea.

Thanks, guys.

 

[joe_newbuilder]

This would likely correct my issue if Windows 7 would show up as an OS on step 3 of the first link. No OS is displayed. I'm able to get to the command prompt, but after attempting all advice given so far, I'm unable to repair the OS that "doesn't exist."

To joe_newbuilder; My HDD is in RAW format now. When I wiped it, all data was removed. Placing it in the system renders the same result.

I do appreciate you guys' effort to assist, but it's becoming more apparent that a clean installation would be best in this situation. I just don't like the thought of spending the day updating Windows.

I'll have the next few hours to receive more advice before lugging my daughter to my mother's home, so feel free to chime in if anyone has an idea.

Thanks, guys.

Good luck! I was amazed that the windows7 DVD repair utilities actually fixed that exact issue for me. I really could not do a clean install because I lost the install keys for some of my software and do not use cracked keys.