Fixing Windows Server 2008 R2 Boot Problem

I was playing around with a couple of Windows Server 2008 R2 virtual machines today, and accidentally messed up the boot records somehow. After playing around with a number of partition and disk recovery tools. I finally ran across this post called Windows Server 2008 R2 always boots into recovery console that had a solution that worked for me even though my problem was different. I wanted to record the steps I used so that I could find them later.

I used their Method 2 which worked for me. here are the steps:

1. Put the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation disc in the disc drive, and then start the computer.
2. Press any key when the message indicating “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …”. appears.
3. Select a language, time, currency, and a keyboard or another input method. Then click Next.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
7. Type Bootrec /RebuildBcd, and then press ENTER

They also offered up another method to try, but I didn’t need to go that far but here is as well for future reference.

1. Put the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation disc into the disc drive, and then start the computer.
2. Press a key when the message indicating “Press any key to boot from CD or DVD …”. appears.
3. Select a language, a time, a currency, and a keyboard or another input method, and then click Next.
4. Click Repair your computer.
5. Click the operating system that you want to repair, and then click Next.
6. In the System Recovery Options dialog box, click Command Prompt.
7. Type BOOTREC /FIXMBR, and then press ENTER.
8. Type BOOTREC /FIXBOOT, and then press ENTER.
9. Type Drive:\boot\Bootsect.exe /NT60 All, and then press ENTER.

They also note that the Drive in step 9 is the drive where the Windows Server 2008 R2 installation media is located.

Hopefully I’ll never need to use this again, but if I do now it is documented. Also there is KB article #927392 on Microsoft’s site called How to use the Bootrec.exe tool in the Windows Recovery Environment to troubleshoot and repair startup issues in Windows that details the different options as well.