Windows won't boot

[theTenfold]

I have Windows XP. My windows will not boot, it says boot device not found.

Here's what happened: I had a main C: partition for a long time and I wanted to format, so I resized my C: partition and made a new partition (D.
That worked fine, I installed another Windows XP on D: and it went well for a few weeks. I kept my C: partition for those few weeks just in-case I forgot anything I wanted on it. It's now been a few weeks and I decided to remove the C: partition and expand the D: partition to use all unallocated space.
The problem is, when I removed the C: partition and restarted, it wouldn't boot at all. I figured it would boot the D: partition but it didn't. I can't use Windows repair or boot into safe mode because it has no boot device.

What can I do to get my D: partition renamed to C: and have it boot properly? I also need to fix the mbr but I can't do that because the Repair option on my Windows XP cd doesn't work because it says boot device not found.

 

[bm23]

I had the exact problem once. It seemed that when installing windows on the D partition, somehow, some files related to boot device was installed on the C partition. When I reformatted the C partition, those files were gone too, as such, the comp wouldnt boot. What i did was to backup my files, then reinstall windows. That said, maybe other more experienced members may have a better solution to your problem

 

[theTenfold]

I hope so

So, an update... here's what I just did: I made a 4gb partition on the disk and installed windows onto it. I made an admin password, rebooted, got into the windows recovery console and did a FIXMBR. It was successful. When I restarted it though, it automatically loaded my new windows install and I can't boot my other partition.

I could copy my important data to my external hdd, delete all partitions, and make one big one like I wanted in the first place, but I want to know if there's another way around this before I go do all that work.

 

[johnb35]

You can try partition recovery software but I doubt that will help since you expanded D into the space used by C correct?

 

[theTenfold]

You can try partition recovery software but I doubt that will help since you expanded D into the space used by C correct?

I never got to expand D: because it wouldn't boot after I removed C:.

Anyways... I backed up some data to my external hdd, removed all partitions, and installed fresh. Works fine now. Thanks for the help though guys, I appreciate it.