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After discovering that my System Reserved partition was much smaller than Microsoft recommends, I decided to use GParted to extend it with some of the unallocated space. Unfortunately, there was no unallocated space between the System Reserved and the Windows partitions. This meant I had to move the Windows partition to the right of the unallocated memory. The GParted manual told me that such an operation would require the MBR to be fixed using the Windows 7 installation disc. As I had already used the disc to fix the MBR a couple of times after installation of new storage, I started moving the partition right away.

When the operation completed, I booted from the installation disc, entered my preferred localization settings, and clicked Repair your computer. However, the screen that hit me was not the usual system repair where I would select the correct Windows installation and so on. All the System Repair left me was frustration and a message saying

This version of System Recovery Options is not compatible with the version of Windows you are trying to repair. Try using a recovery disc that is compatible with this version of Windows.

System Reapir was just fine right before the partitioning, and I knew perfectly well that I was using the correct disc. Unfortunately, there was no button saying "I caught your lie, now take me to the command prompt".

TL;DR: Moved partition, System Repair doesn't work

Is there anything that can make Windows bootable again?

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    Looks like the System Reapir got your deerly GParted computer and now you need aNUstart... Sorry... I can't stop punning...
    – Wutnaut
    Commented Jun 19, 2014 at 21:05
  • Every time you move start of partition where system is installed you will get problems unless you understand what you are doing - learning the "auch" way ;) This is true for Windows, Linux ...every OS. Partition address is crucial for booting!
    – snayob
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 7:01
  • Yes, I had already moved the Windows partition on another computer and used the installation disc to repair the configuration without problems. However, this time System Repair wouldn't start, leaving me with an error message.
    – osvein
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 7:28
  • Use SHIFT-F10 on screen where you choose install or recovery
    – snayob
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 8:09

1 Answer 1

Reset to default
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Go straight to the recovery console from the Windows installation disc by holding Shift and F10 simultaneously on the screen after localization options. Then you can use these two commands on recovery console:

bootsect /nt60 all /mbr
bcdboot c:\windows /s a:

Where c: is the Windows partition and a: is the partition marked as active. If there is no active partition you should mark the partition you resized as active. Change drive letters in command above according to your mappings.

The select disk, list volume and list partition commands in diskpart.exe can be used to display partitions mappings.

When Windows 7 is successfully booted, you can use a BCD manipulation utility such as Visual BCD Editor to examine/rename/delete boot entries.

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  • How do I get to the recovery console if System Repair is unavailable?
    – osvein
    Commented Jun 20, 2014 at 5:42
  • "When the operation completed, I booted from the installation disc, entered my preferred localization settings" - ARE YOUR WORDS ! Why -1 ? Do you know what recovery console is ?
    – snayob
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 6:56
  • Yes, I use it all the time through the installation disc. After I choose my language, I click "Repair my computer" instead of "Install". Or maybe you were thinking about another recovery console?
    – osvein
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 7:13
  • You can go to (recovery console = command prompt) where you have myriad of commands like: dir, copy, del, cd .... also bootsect.exe, bcdboot.exe.
    – snayob
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 7:28
  • 1
    Use SHIFT-F10 on screen where you choose install or recovery
    – snayob
    Commented Jun 21, 2014 at 8:09

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