Tag Archives: MBR

Windows: Windows did not start. Howto write a new MBR and recover Windows OS Bootsector

Hi,

if you migrate a Windows Installation to another Computer or virtual environment such as VMWare ESXi or VMWare Workstation it could happen that the system won’t start.

A typical error when the master boot record or the boot sector of the boot partition needs to be updated or must be rewritten is when

  • After Postscreen of the BIOS the console shows “Operating system not found” this means there is no boot code in MBR
  • or it shows only a blinking cursor in the upper left edge. 2 possible reasons are thinkable
  1. MBR boot code is loaded but could not load the operation system => The boot sector of the Windows Boot partition needs to be updated
  2. The boot(active) flag of Windows boot partition  is missing

For all cases you can use the command line program “testdisk” which is part of the most linux live CDs/DVDs to correct this.
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