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?
Can I make this drive bootable again? Topic is solved
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When asking for technical support:
- Search for posts on the same topic before posting a new question.
- Give clear, specific information in the title of your post.
- Include as many details as you can, MOST POSTS WILL GET ONLY ONE OR TWO ANSWERS.
- Post a follow up with a "Thank you" or "This worked!"
- When you learn something, use that knowledge to HELP ANOTHER USER LATER.
Before posting, please read https://www.cgsecurity.org/testdisk.pdf
- cgrenier
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Re: Can I make this drive bootable again?
Set the partition as *(bootable), not P(rimary).
Re: Can I make this drive bootable again?
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!

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!

