Corrupted booting windows 7 issue
January 24th, 2020
I don’t know how to explain my problem, but i will try to describe what i can describe and hope you can understand my problem to solve it.
About 2 weeks ago or less, i replaced my HDD drive on my PC laptop with a faster drive [Seagate Momentus XT 750GB HSSD 7200] without cloning, i just installed it in the PC in a store and i did a fresh Win 7 installment, i tried to read my replaced HDD on my PC by USB cable, it couldn’t read it, and i don’t know or can’t remember what i did in Disk Management to convert the drive to something [maybe to active or whatever], so i decided i want to put back my old HDD in my PC and get used to my data there and try to backup or take out the files i need delete something i forgot to delete.
To my Surprise, when i returned back my HDD into the PC it didn’t work, it never boot to Windows 7, i thought i couldn’t identify the HDD, but in the store and under the BIOS we found that the HDD is there and identified, but it never boot, the person in the shop told me i should format it after i backup the data, well, the backup is one option or last option i may choose, but is there any way i can return the HDD to boot again? I have the Windows 7 original DVD, how can i fix or recover the boot to OS again?
Also, if i formatted my Seagate Momentus XT HSSD and i cloned my HDD to this one, will i be able to boot fine without problems? I really don’t want to format my old HDD as there are programs and even some bookmarked pages on browsers and i don’t want to spend long time re-installing programs and also trying to find some unfinished downloaded files i didn’t complete yet and finally trying to remember and find all bookmarked sites links, i want to surviving or resurrecting my HDD if it is possible.
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You need to restore the Master Boot Record, here’s a guide http://www.sevenforums.com/tutorials/20864-mbr-restore-windows-7-master-boot-record.html then format the Momentus before cloning the other HDD to it with Acronis or whatever software you plan to use. After cloning make sure you change the boot order in BIOS, when its working then connect the old HDD and format it. In future keep a backup, it can make life a lot easier.
you need to check the “replaced” drive’s health to be sure physical damage is not the problem
get “Hard Disk Sentinel”, re-connect the new drive and see if “Hard Disk Sentinel” can see the “replaced” drive
or leave the “replaced” drive in the lappy and use “Hiren’s BootCD” (which has “Hard Disk Sentinel” on it) to check the drive
if the drive reads Ok get “Recova” and see if it can read and recover any files you need