I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop that has a crashed drive. Before the drive died completely, I was able to make a backup, but when I restored the backup, it did not restore to the root directory but rather to a subdirectory. I made the backup by pulling the drive out and connecting it to another computer. It connected at Drive F, so when the backup was made, the first directory is F. How do I get rid of the F directory so that initial directory is the root? When I look at the drive in Windows diagnostics, I see c:\f\. I can't boot it because the boot files all live in this \f subdirectory. Thoughts please??? Stephen

AFAB wrote: I have a Toshiba Satellite laptop that has a crashed drive. Before the drive died completely, I was able to make a backup, but when I restored the backup, it did not restore to the root directory but rather to a subdirectory. I made the backup by pulling the drive out and connecting it to another computer. It connected at Drive F, so when the backup was made, the first directory is F.  How do I get rid of the F directory so that initial directory is the root? When I look at the drive in Windows diagnostics, I see c:\f\.  I can't boot it because the boot files all live in this \f subdirectory.  Thoughts please??? Stephen If there is nothing else to do, this can be quite simply done by moving the files from C:\F to C:\ . Before you do so, be sure, that there does not exist a F folder in the C:\F folder - if that's the case rename the C:\F folder to something, which does not exist as subfolder. Afterwards remove the F folder (under C: ) and you are done. If your MBR is corrupted, too, you can recreate that by the methods described in that article: http://support.microsoft.com/kb/927392/en-us Wolfgang

Thanks, Wolfgang. I followed the instructions exactly but still no boot manager found. When I use bootrec /scanos, it finds no Windows installations. Very frustrating. I've run through the process above multiple times with no joy. I was successful in moving everything from the F directory to root -- connected the drive to another laptop and easily made the fix. Now all the files that are supposed to be in the root are there. I just can't recreate the boot manager. Incidentally, now in the System Recovery Option, it no longer shows the Windows 7 install, which it did a moment ago. :( Not sure it's worth all this work -- might just throw in another disk and start from scratch with a clean install.

Is it possible to do an in-place reinstall of Windows 7 without affecting data the way I could reinstall DOS - XP when they crashed? It used to be a regular maintenance project every year or so -- reinstall the operating system to get rid of problems that arose during the year. I tried to run the upgrade for Win 7, but it won't do it without a valid boot manager so, no joy. stephen

AFAB wrote: Is it possible to do an in-place reinstall of Windows 7 without affecting data the way I could reinstall DOS - XP when they crashed? It used to be a regular maintenance project every year or so -- reinstall the operating system to get rid of problems that arose during the year. I tried to run the upgrade for Win 7, but it won't do it without a valid boot manager so, no joy. stephen I would not dare this in your situation. It is possible, but only if the install sees your old data (partition). As it seems, that your drive data is corrupted (probably because of the failing of the drive before the backup) it could be easily necessary to repartition your harddrive thus completely removing access to your data. I would copy the data over to a backup medium and afterwards reinstall Win7. If you are lucky your data will remain intact, but if not, you can take the data from backup and put it onto your new installation. Wolfgang

I think you're right -- this disk is a lost cause. Ah, well. It could have been worse -- could have been a server. Thanks for your help, Wolfgang.