[Urgent] Unable to boot into Win10; no recovery disk present

One option is to head to a nearby cyber cafe with 8 GB pen drive. Download the Windows 10 ISO using Media Creation Tool from Microsoft. Preferably of the same bitness that your current Windows 10 is of (In case you attempt to use recovery tools). Using Rufus app create a BIOS MBR Bootable Windows 10 Pen drive. Then use it to either attempt to repair the installation or opt for a clean install.
In any case make sure to disconnect the faulty drive and keep only the system drive connected.

patkim said:

One option is to head to a nearby cyber cafe with 8 GB pen drive. Download the Windows 10 ISO using Media Creation Tool from Microsoft. Preferably of the same bitness that your current Windows 10 is of (In case you attempt to use recovery tools). Using Rufus app create a BIOS MBR Bootable Windows 10 Pen drive. Then use it to either attempt to repair the installation or opt for a clean install.
In any case make sure to disconnect the faulty drive and keep only the system drive connected.

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Ok, I've access to a second system, I can try that.

In the mean time I've created a live Linux USB and booted to system. My primary (160GB HDD) is accessible but the 500GB HDD is not showing up.
Whe nI restart and press F12 for boot menu, the 500GB HDD comes as option but it does not show up in BIOS boot device selection option.
Not sure what is going on there.

Anyway, is there anything that can be done with this Live Linux USB? Fixing of MBR is my goal here.

Create a bootable DVD or USB using Aomei PE builder and then try to fix MBR from it.

if u can access the 500GB from linux then u can try the below command to backup the MBR and reuse it.

dd if=/dev/sda of=/path-to-save/mbr-backup bs=512 count=1

also try Easy Recovery essential.
Easy Recovery Essentials by NeoSmart Technologies

make a bootable USB from easy recovery and fix your problem.

Refer this guide and decide which method suits you the best. You can simply download GParted Live and using testdisk attempt to fix the MBR as mentioned in the guide.

Nevertheless since you have upgraded your Windows 7 to 10 and it might have added several updates, sometime later you can anyways download Windows 10 latest using MCT and keep a USB bootable pen drive or DVD with you that will come in handy for either clean install or any repairs.

patkim said:

Refer this guide and decide which method suits you the best. You can simply download GParted Live and using testdisk attempt to fix the MBR as mentioned in the guide.

Nevertheless since you have upgraded your Windows 7 to 10 and it might have added several updates, sometime later you can anyways download Windows 10 latest using MCT and keep a USB bootable pen drive or DVD with you that will come in handy for either clean install or any repairs.

Click to expand...

This seems useful.I'll try and report here.

b/w contacted a data recovery shop here at Kolkata, "BitIT".
They would take 350/- for inspections.
And, to recover 500GB (if possible) may charge 5k to 7k.

Diwali mein diwala nikal jayega mera!!!

rhitwick said:

This seems useful.I'll try and report here.

b/w contacted a data recovery shop here at Kolkata, "BitIT".
They would take 350/- for inspections.
And, to recover 500GB (if possible) may charge 5k to 7k.

Diwali mein diwala nikal jayega mera!!!

Click to expand...

Don't recover if its not important.

The recovery center usually replace the cylinder head while recovering the data.

Zangetsu said:

Don't recover if its not important.

The recovery center usually replace the cylinder head while recovering the data.

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Sorry I am not aware if it's good or bad. Is it bad? What do they do with it? Cylinder head is used to reach the address block on correct disk(platter is the correct term?), right?

TheSloth said:

Sorry I am not aware if it's good or bad. Is it bad? What do they do with it? Cylinder head is used to reach the address block on correct disk(platter is the correct term?), right?

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Its not bad to recover from technical specialists but only thing is the huge data recovery charges which in terms of rhitwick is above 5k. and if data is not at all important then no point of recovery and wasting money. with that money one can buy 2~3TB of new HDD

Yes, they even recover the data from dead undetectable drives...As far I know they replace the Drive reading head with their working heads and recover the data. Even claim to recover deleted data or crashed HDD data.

patkim said:

Refer this guide and decide which method suits you the best. You can simply download GParted Live and using testdisk attempt to fix the MBR as mentioned in the guide.

Nevertheless since you have upgraded your Windows 7 to 10 and it might have added several updates, sometime later you can anyways download Windows 10 latest using MCT and keep a USB bootable pen drive or DVD with you that will come in handy for either clean install or any repairs.

Click to expand...

Tried most of these. Did not work.

Only viable solution is now reinstalling OS.

I'll try rest of the steps with Gparted....just checked, only Gparted option is pending.

Update:

The second HDD (500GB Seagate) is dead.
Installed Win10 on existing 160GB one.

Contacted a data recovery company (Bit it)
They claimed that they can help me recover data.

350/- inspection charge. Depending on HDD health further charge.

Already visited and paid 350/-

After 2 weeks they confirmed. Recovery impossible. Issue in logic board.
Gave me two options,

1. Take back the HDD
2. They send HDDs for data recovery to Singapore. Where some firm prepare clone logic board and 'try' to reover data. 25% chance of success.
Original price quoted 40K. BUT, said, as 8 more HDDs are going and few are corporate ones. He's charging heavy for them and can forego my cost (not totally rather 10k instead of 40K

I'm now in a dillemma. Should I go for this.

I can spend 10k and ready to pay 10k. And, informed him too that under any circumstance max 10K is all I would spend.

What do you guys think?

^^I would say don't go for it....25% chance of recovery is too low.
40k to 10k is a marketing gimmick

Consider this lesson learned & move on.Buy this yearly to get 6TB one drive space (1TB/user for 6 users,may share cost/space with friends etc) & use it as online backup.
Microsoft Office 365 Home for 6 people (PCs/Macs, Tablets, Phones )for 12 month/1 Year

Above seller is not cloudtail so there is this similar offer too but for 5 users(aka 5TB).
Microsoft Office 365 Home for 5 people (Windows/Mac Laptop + tablet) for 12 month/1 Year

1TB for 1 user is also available for 2600.
Microsoft Office 365 Personal for 1 user (Windows/Mac), 12 month/1 Year

Do you really pay that much for cloud storage? Do you really rely the protection of your files on cloud?

I don't currently but planning on getting it in future.It is not expensive at all,I mean for 4200(350/month) you are getting 6TB of storage & if you get some friend/friends to share cost it will come down even more.Also it is more likely for your hdd to crash compared to MS data centres where they most likely use enterprise class hdd with several redundancy measures.I am not saying to not make any local backup,just that having an online backup is an extra layer of protection especially if it costs you the same as the price of a medium size pizza per month.

P.S. you also get genuine MS Office latest version at any time too if that matters.

Vyom said:

Do you really pay that much for cloud storage? Do you really rely the protection of your files on cloud?

Click to expand...

Cloud storage is always secure in terms of local backup. Due to reliability, extra protection etc.

And now people are moving to decentralized storage systems which is based on Blockchain framework.

Decentralized Cloud Storage — Storj

whitestar_999 said:

P.S. you also get genuine MS Office latest version at any time too if that matters.

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Well yes, free office is a bonus thing. But not for people who have shifted to Ubuntu like me
Anyway, it's a good deal alright. I was just wondering, what if you have the data stored on the cloud, like 2 TB, and then you are not able to renew the subscription. All data destroyed, or more likely seized by M$ until we pay like random? That's the one thing which keeps bugging me with paid cloud service. With all the hacking, data leaks happening online, it's really hard to trust.

Anyway, I think we have gone way out of topic. If anyone is interested to follow up on this discussion, we can create new thread and move posts there.

FYI: I've already bought Office 365 package.

Costing me 460/- per month.

Reason: 1TB cloud.

rhitwick said:

FYI: I've already bought Office 365 package.

Costing me 460/- per month.

Reason: 1TB cloud.

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First thing I did post OS install this time.

That is monthly subscription & not yearly,right?Because yearly subscription is cheaper(~2600/year for 1TB). Btw good decision.

whitestar_999 said:

That is monthly subscription & not yearly,right?Because yearly subscription is cheaper(~2600/year for 1TB). Btw good decision.

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Yes, monthly.