Can I make this drive bootable again? Topic is solved

How to use TestDisk to recover lost partition
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disker
Posts: 2
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 13:00

Can I make this drive bootable again?

#1 Post by disker »

I had a Windows OS drive that was accidentally formatted by my Mac.

Fortunately, testdisk was able to recover the NTFS partition and everything looks intact. I've made a backup of the files.

My question is is there any way to make this disk bootable into the Windows install again? All the Windows files appear intact. I've set the partition to primary again and tried rebuilding the MBR but it hasn't worked. I tried a Windows recovery disk and it could not find any valid install of Windows and Bootrec has also failed to fix it.

Am I stuck reinstalling Windows?

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cgrenier
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Re: Can I make this drive bootable again?

#2 Post by cgrenier »

Set the partition as *(bootable), not P(rimary).

disker
Posts: 2
Joined: 10 Apr 2015, 13:00

Re: Can I make this drive bootable again?

#3 Post by disker »

Thanks, I tried that previously and just ended up in a boot loop.

I ended up running testdisk again, setting it to bootable and writing again without result. I then was able to get the Windows recovery disk to find it this time though. After running chkdsk it's now booting again! :D :D

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