need boot partition recovery/rebuild software

[hitbyambulance]

it looks like the fiasco that was installing my giant video card on my gaming desktop led to ALL my connected SSDs/HDDs being corrupted or damaged. it's truly a bad scene. after running CHDKSK on my main SSD, the drive became unbootable. ok, i think the MBR is corrupt. run through ALL the options from BOOTREC in Windows repair, i get 'element not found' errors when i try to reconstruct the MBR.

https://www.diskpart.com/articles/bootr ... -3889.html

would like to give AOMEI Partition Assistant a try, but i don't know where that thumbdrive is... and you need a Windows install to create it a new one. problem is, the only other Windows machine is my corporate laptop, and it's locked down - can't install anything not authorized to it. i have two MacBooks (personal machines), a Linux desktop and a Linux dev laptop for work - none of that will help here. what are other good options for this problem? i am fairly conversant in Linux so i would be willing to try something there. or could someone install AOMEI Partition Assistant, create the ISO, then deliver it me over the webz via some method or another so i can just

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dd

the USB drive with it?

[LordMortis]

I used to use Partition Wizard. But I haven't needed to in over a decade. I can't speak to what's happened since then

https://www.partitionwizard.com/free-pa ... nager.html. And for $90 I had a great recovery tool I used beyond for general recovery but for the life of me I can't remember what it was. Again, it was over a decade since I used it and it was for work and I don't work any more.

[Anonymous Bosch]

it looks like the fiasco that was installing my giant video card on my gaming desktop led to ALL my connected SSDs/HDDs being corrupted or damaged. it's truly a bad scene. after running CHDKSK on my main SSD, the drive became unbootable. ok, i think the MBR is corrupt. run through ALL the options from BOOTREC in Windows repair, i get 'element not found' errors when i try to reconstruct the MBR.

https://www.diskpart.com/articles/bootr ... -3889.html

would like to give AOMEI Partition Assistant a try, but i don't know where that thumbdrive is... and you need a Windows install to create it a new one. problem is, the only other Windows machine is my corporate laptop, and it's locked down - can't install anything not authorized to it. i have two MacBooks (personal machines), a Linux desktop and a Linux dev laptop for work - none of that will help here. what are other good options for this problem? i am fairly conversant in Linux so i would be willing to try something there. or could someone install AOMEI Partition Assistant, create the ISO, then deliver it me over the webz via some method or another so i can just

Code: Select all

dd

the USB drive with it?

If you have another spare thumb drive you can use, my recommendation would be to download and install Medicat USB to create a bootable flash drive for troubleshooting, as shown and demonstrated here:

[Anonymous Bosch]

Also, if you're looking to repair your Windows boot partition and boot from an existing Windows installation without reinstalling, have a butcher's at the process explained and documented here, and shown below:

[hitbyambulance]

this is what i was looking for - going to give this a try when i'm not sooooo very busy

[Kasey Chang]

FWIW, that corruption may indicate a weak or failing power supply during startup. Generally, HD's go no-contact when there's a power interruption.

[hitbyambulance]

FWIW, that corruption may indicate a weak or failing power supply during startup. Generally, HD's go no-contact when there's a power interruption.

precisely - these problems occurred when i tried running my new Radeon 6800 XT GPU with the installed 650W PSU. i was assured it _might_ work, but it kept being unstable and rebooting. ok, sure, to be expected, but i only used it for 20 mins and in that time it took out:

- a Samsung EVO 870 SSD: this is the OS drive with the corrupted MBR partition after an attempted chkdsk repair that i'm dealing with now
- a Seagate Barracuda 2TB HDD: this is the drive where all my games were stored. the drive was definitely not new, and is not working now.
- an external WD HDD: this one is the weirdest, as it was only connected to the PC via a USB cable and has its own power supply. this drive had my whole digital music collection on it, and i had only an old backup of it. but no, totally toast >:{

consider this a cautionary tale.