Windows 7 / Getting Started

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Managing the Boot Sector for Hard Disk Partitions

The Boot Sector Configurator (Bootsect.exe) is a tool you can use to manage the master boot sector on computers running Windows 7. Before you try to install Windows XP or an earlier version of Windows on a computer running Windows 7, you should familiarize yourself with this tool.

Bootsect is provided as part of the Windows Automated Installation Kit (Windows AIK), which is available as a free download from the Microsoft Download website. Visit http://download.microsoft.com and search for "Windows AIK."

Using the Boot Sector Configurator

You use Bootsect to modify the master boot code for a designated hard disk partition so that either Boot Manager or Ntldr is used to boot the operating system. You also can use Bootsect to restore the boot sector on your computer if it has been corrupted or accidentally overwritten. This tool replaces FixNTFS.

Note: Windows 7 can repair most boot sector problems. For boot sector problems that Windows 7 can't fix, you can boot to the Windows Recovery Environment, access a command prompt, and then run Bootsect.

The hard disk partition that you want to modify is identified using one of the following identifiers:

• DriverLetter:, where DriveLetter identifies the letter of the drive to modify, followed by the colon, such as C:. The drive letter must be for a connected, bootable volume.
• SYS specifies that you want to modify the system partition used to boot Windows 7.
• ALL specifies that you want to modify all partitions that could be used as Windows boot volumes and exclude those that cannot be used as boot volumes.

To create a boot sector for Ntldr and a pre-Windows 7 operating system, you use the /nt52 parameter followed by the identifier for the disk partition you want to modify, such as:

bootsect /nt52 SYS

To create a boot sector for Boot Manager and Windows 7 or later, you use the /nt60 parameter followed by the identifier for the disk partition you want to modify, such as:

bootsect /nt60 D:

Bootsect will always try to lock and dismount the partition before updating it. If Bootsect cannot gain exclusive access to the drive, the drive's boot sector is modified the next time the computer is started.

You can attempt to force a partition to dismount using the /force parameter. However, this causes all open file handle s to become invalid, which may cause programs to lock or fail.