Windows 7 Partition gone after Yosemite upgrade

Based on you previous observations, the issue seems to be related to Windows Bootmanager/loader. Please post the output of the following two commands and the GPT and MBR can be verified.

sudo gpt -vv -r show /dev/disk0

sudo fdisk /dev/disk0

Please enter your password when prompted.

Thanks for your immediate response.

This is the output of both commands:

What do you think?

Usually, the disk has four parts in a OSX/Windows setup. EFI/ESP, OSX, Recovery HD and Windows.

GPT#3 is supposed to be Recovery HD. You have a non-standard configuration because the size is different (about 29GB). Was your recovery HD deleted?

You have two HFS+ partitions, which is also non- standard. Do you have two OSX installations, no Recovery HD for either and Windows?

Can you post the output of diskutil list?

The partition type of '0C' (FAT) for Windows is not correct, it should be 07 (NTFS).

I have a Macintoch HD (which i have formatted and installed Yosemite), I have a 30GB backup disk (Mac OS Extended (Journaled) - just for data), the BOOTCAMP partition (NTFS) which has all windows files and there was for sure a Recovery HD before the clean installation of Yosemite (probably EFI = 210 MB?).

Before the installation of Yosemite I could see, with every startup and hold Option button, a Macintosh HD, a Recovery HD and a Bootcamp HD.

I am a beginner in Mac, so I cannot fully answer to your questions.

Should I try a Windows Repair?

The current single disk layout is non-standard and is likely to break in the future. Does the BOOTCAMP volume appear in OSX Finder and can you see files in it?

Please post the output of the following command that dumps the NTFS header from the Bootcamp volume.

sudo dd if=/dev/rdisk0s4 count=1 2>/dev/null | hexdump -C

If the NTFS header is intact, there is a simple fix. If it is not, then a different tool, Testdisk is used to locate 'lost' NTFS headers. When was the last time, Windows worked on this Mac?

I will post again the answers to your questions:

1 Do you see a Bootcamp Volume in Finder?

Yes, I can see that.

2. Do you see files in the Bootcamp volume in Finder?

Yes, I can see all of them like it was before.

3. Can you select Bootcamp/Windows in System Preferences -> Startup Disk.

Yes, I can select it. When I do, MBA restarts and tries to boot in Windows 7 without success. The message I got is that the partition is not bootable. Then I restart with holding Option and choose Macintosh HD.

Also when I start MBA and hold Option button, the only option I have is Macintosh HD.

And that's the output of the last command you've asked me to type:

The last time that Windows worked was right before the Yosemite installation (before 1 day). I wanted to move some NTFS USB flash's data to Bootcamp HD in order to make a Yosemite bootable USB.

So after the clean installation of Yosemite I was not able to boot to windows again.

What do you think?

I hope the solution will be the simple fix. 🙂

Your GPT and MBR match, the OSX side can access the, the MBR has one problem. The following steps should fix it. Please ignore teh i386 boot error message. It is normal.

sudo fdisk -e /dev/disk0

setpid 4

07

flag 4

p

w

y

Reboot and Test.

Yeap. It worked. 🙂

Thank you so much.

If I got it right, the problem was that MBR couldn't find the BOOTMGR file because disk0s4 was registered as a FAT in MBR instead of NTFS file system. Correct?

By the way, now I can also read (only) all Mac OD Extended (Journaled) drives in Windows. I couldn't do that before. Interesting...

ioarvan wrote:

Yeap. It worked. 🙂

Thank you so much.

If I got it right, the problem was that MBR couldn't find the BOOTMGR file because disk0s4 was registered as a FAT in MBR instead of NTFS file system. Correct?

The '07' code marks the Windows partition as NTFS (not FATxx). The allows OSX to 'bless' it correctly and it boots correctly. Windows XP can be FATxx but it has the NTLDR. Your conclusion is correct.

By the way, now I can also read (only) all Mac OD Extended (Journaled) drives in Windows. I couldn't do that before. Interesting...

The BC Engineers have done some fancy stuff with their read-only NTFS and HFS drivers. They do not allow third-party drivers access. If you had Tuxera or Paragon, you can run into Startup issues on both sides, OSX-to-Windows (NTFS driver) and Windows-to-OSX (HFS Driver). There is a discussion on MacRumours about it, but I do not have a link for it.

Nice. Thank you for the info.

No worries, I will find the thread in MacRumours when I'll have time.

Cya

Hello Loner T, can you take a look at my screen shots and help me out?

I just updated the OS X and the Windows 7 partition which I usually use has disappeared...

Can I suggest a new discussion with this screen shots? it is much easier to track individual issues.

Hello Loner T, thanks for the quick response. I have already created a new thread, please take a look: https://discussions.apple.com/thread/7033729

Cataiday wrote:

...Before I created this thread to ask for your support, there were 2 options to restart OS, including Mac and something with strange name.

After following your instruction above and reboot the system, there were 3 options including Mac, Windows and still something with strange name...

This is a long shot, but on the assumption that your goal is to get Windows 7 working again, rather than Win 7 in Boot Camp, you should be aware that VMware Fusion (and probably Parallels and Virtual Box) can take a Boot Camp installation and create a Virtual Machine from it (and once done, it doesn't care that newer versions of OS X are dropping support for older versions of Windows). I don't know if your Windows/Boot Camp installation is still functional enough for Fusion to convert it, but it might be worth a try.