Windows 7 not bootable after upgrade

I'm not really sure what to suggest.

I can see a problem in that you appear to have 5 partitions, whereas the hybrid mbr can only handle 4, which is why the mbr only reports "seeing" 4.

When was the data partition created?

You definitely don't want to create a new GPT.

I'm really not 100% sure here as I try to avoid exceeding the 4 partition limit imposed by the hybrid mbr, however, what I would do is to create a new hybrid mbr using gdisk.

In that new hybrid mbr I would include EFI partition (answer Y when asked) and I would also include partitions 2, 3 & 4 with default partition types.

The only one that you should answer Y to is when asked to make partition 4 bootable (answering N to the rest).

(This new hybrid mbr would be that same as your present mbr except that partition 4 would be bootable, however I'm not sure whether there is a shorter way of doing it).

The area I'm unsure about is which partitions to include in the new mbr, though I think the above is probably correct.

Don't forget to write the new details to disk (ie type w then enter then answer Y).

Please note that if I'm wrong here there may be repercussions, though probably not unfixable.

Good luck!

Press r then enter for the recovery menu and then press h and enter to make a new hybrid mbr

At this point

type from one to three GPT partition numbers, separated by spaces, to be

added to the hybrid MBR, in sequence: 1 2 3 4

you typed in 4 partition numbers. It asks for 1 to 3 :-)

Just type in 2 3 4 and not 1 2 3 4

The EFI partition will be added automatically when you answer Y to adding it (as you did)

Excellent! :-) You're welcome. Glad to help.

You need to remember that to a non-GPT aware partitioning tool it will appear that you have 650MB of free space.

You don't! That's the OSX Recovery HD.

So it's a really non-standard layout that isn't supported. For one you have five partitions. Two are "microsoft basic data" types, but I can't tell which contains Windows and which is an extra. I'm uncertain of the advantage of having two NTFS partitions on a single disk like this, but whatever. The other thing is that Recovery HD is in the normal position in terms of sectors, but in terms of order in the GPT it's last - that's a first for me, I'm not sure how that would happen. There's nothing inherently wrong with this, but it's just not expected and something had to have done this, it doesn't happen on its own.

Based on fdisk results:

3: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 70584320 - 67815424]

4: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 138399744 - 98576384]

The very basic problem is that neither has a * to indicate it's bootable. The easiest way to fix it is to use fdisk -e to edit the partition table, and then use the command flag in fdisk on the partition that you want bootable. So

print

flag 4

write

Is the approximate sequence I think, assuming partition 4 contains the Windows you want bootable.

Christopher Murphy thanks for the fdisk commands. I knew there must be an easier way but didn't know how to do it and be safe :-)

Maybe the recovery HD has been deleted at some time, then re-created in available space with one of those utilities that can do that. I think I did that at some time. 🙂

Hi all,

as write.to.salman I also upgraded to maverikcs and not able anymore to boot on windows 7.

I tried to follow step by step your suggestion, anyway whenever I try to boot into windows it says " operating system not available".

What I did is:

i)

Na-If-Mac-Mini:~ naif$ diskutil list

/dev/disk0

#: TYPE NAME SIZE IDENTIFIER

0: GUID_partition_scheme *500.1 GB disk0

1: EFI EFI 209.7 MB disk0s1

2: Apple_HFS Macintosh HD 248.5 GB disk0s2

3: Apple_Boot Recovery HD 650.0 MB disk0s3

4: Microsoft Basic Data 250.8 GB disk0s4

ii)

Na-If-Mac-Mini:~ naif$ sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

Password:

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 976773167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 485320880 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

485730520 1269544 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

487000064 489773056 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

976773120 15

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

Na-If-Mac-Mini:~ naif$ sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Disk: /dev/disk0 geometry: 60801/255/63 [976773168 sectors]

Signature: 0xAA55

Starting Ending

#: id cyl hd sec - cyl hd sec [ start - size]

------------------------------------------------------------------------

1: EE 0 0 2 - 1023 254 63 [ 1 - 487000063] <Unknown ID>

*2: 07 1023 254 63 - 1023 254 63 [ 487000064 - 489773056] HPFS/QNX/AUX

3: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

4: 00 0 0 0 - 0 0 0 [ 0 - 0] unused

Na-If-Mac-Mini:~ naif$

Na-If-Mac-Mini:~ naif$ sudo gpt -r -vv show disk0

Password:

gpt show: disk0: mediasize=500107862016; sectorsize=512; blocks=976773168

gpt show: disk0: Suspicious MBR at sector 0

gpt show: disk0: Pri GPT at sector 1

gpt show: disk0: Sec GPT at sector 976773167

start size index contents

0 1 MBR

1 1 Pri GPT header

2 32 Pri GPT table

34 6

40 409600 1 GPT part - C12A7328-F81F-11D2-BA4B-00A0C93EC93B

409640 485320880 2 GPT part - 48465300-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

485730520 1269544 3 GPT part - 426F6F74-0000-11AA-AA11-00306543ECAC

487000064 489773056 4 GPT part - EBD0A0A2-B9E5-4433-87C0-68B6B72699C7

976773120 15

976773135 32 Sec GPT table

976773167 1 Sec GPT header

Na-If-Mac-Mini:~ naif$

iv)sudo gdisk /dev/disk0 pressed r

v) pressed h then enter

vi) 2 3 4

vii) pressed enter for all of them and Y in "set bootable flag just for 4"

viii) N

Unfortunatly as soon as I reboot and try to boot into widows 7 it says as mentioned erlier "no operating system available". Do you any clues and suggestions on how I could solve it?

Thank you in advance, you have already been very helpful