Replaced Logic Board lost Boot Camp partition information

When I took my MBP to be repaired at an apple store, they replaced the Logic Board, and now my 500GB HD on OS X no longer has the partition information for Windows 7. The Boot Camp information was lost with the old Logic Board. I need to get it back.. And I dont know where to start. Can anyone help me with this?

Do I need to book into Linux and find it there or something? I wish it would be as easy as reinstalling BC on OS X

I have Snow Leopard. Any help would be appreciated

Changing out the logic board should not have done anything to the hard drive unless in the process the operating system was reinstalled.

Are you sure the Windows partition is gone? Try booting the machine by holding down the OPTION key. Does the Boot Camp (Windows) partition show up? Boot the machine with your original install DVD and use Disk Utility from the DVD. Is the Windows partition there?

And, did you make a backup of the hard drive including the Windows partition before you gave the machine to Apple for repair?

Its not gone. Its there. I can hold alt, start windows in safe mode but the normal mode never starts up. But either way, I dont have the option to restart in Windows on OS X, my VMWare says the "/Users/*username*/Library/Application Support/VMware Fusion/Virtual Machines/Boot Camp/Boot Camp.vmwarevm/Boot Camp.vmdk" is missing, and under Startup Disk, no Windows Boot Camp partition is available.

The partition is there, OS X just doesnt see it.

Now you have me a bit confused. Did you also install Fusion and then opt to use your Boot Camp partition as a VM? Because if you did, the original Windows boot sector may have become corrupt. Again, the swapping out of the logic board would have nothing to do with that.

Have you tried booting with your Windows CD and doing a repair on the Windows partition? (Assuming you have XP installed and not Vista or Windows 7.)

I have windows 7, and It didn't find anything to repair.

I told VMware to use the bootcamp as a VM, but a long time ago. I haven't been able to boot into windows since replacing the logic board. And I agree that replacing it wouldn't have done anything to the hard drives. But, after the repair, all of my settings for mac had returned to defaults: such as the trackpad settings, etc. and I thought the same thing has happened to the Windows 7 Bootcamp partition. OS X doesn't think there is a boot camp there anymore, so it tries to make a new one.

There was nothing in the disk utility either, only the OS X partition

OK, thanks for the clarification. All I can surmise is that whoever did the logic board swap out at Apple may have reinstalled Snow Leopard to check out the new board and line it up with the new hardware. A Snow Leopard reinstall does not destroy applications, documents, or user data. It overwrites system files and that would definitely wipe out the Boot Camp partition information which is stored in the system.

About the only thing you can do is try to copy what data you can from the Win 7 partition and save it. But it looks like you're going to have to run Boot Camp again and reinstall Windows 7. Afterward you can tell Fusion to use it as a VM.

Thanks¡ It makes sense now. They didn't list the reinstallation of the OS as one of the things they did, just the parts. I had said that I haven't backed up my data, but probably not that I had bootcamp. I'll just throw back the allocated space from the BC onto OS X and reinstall it then

Similar problem

Hi everyone. I am having a similar problem and have searched all over the web, posted to the Apple forum and tried numerous fixes and still can't get this problem resolved. I wasn't able to back up my data and although I do have all my files saved to an external drive, I would rather have a clone than have to do a clean install. Here's my issue. Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

I recently had my computer repaired through AppleCare. They replaced the logic board, top cover, a connector and battery. When I first got the computer back, I turned it on, booted to the Mac partition, everything was good. I then booted to Windows with the Bootcamp partition and everything was good. Even the stuff I had open before the damage were still up. I shut it down, boxed everything up and didn't touch it until I got home.

When I got home, I booted up Windows 7 and now all I get is it boots to a black screen with the cursor which is movable, but otherwise, nothing else will load. I ran the repair utility, tried safe mode and it says no errors are found, however, it still won't load. I also ran a chkdsk and tried to repair the bootloader. I haven't figured out why it booted up the first time I got the computer back but now it won't do anything. I never got a chance to back everything up because my computer was damaged from liquid damage, but I can still see all the files on my Bootcamp partition through finder from the Mac side.

I don't know exactly why it's doing this or what to search to find an answer to the problem. When I first got my MBP, I installed Windows 7 through and upgrade disc from my job, so I don't know what my next steps should be.

Other steps:

Tried WinClone to copy the drive and it gave me an error message on the log.

Tried to run system repair several times and it came back with no errors. Same for memory diagnostic tool. Everytime I run the repairs, it finds no errors but still boots up to the black screen with cursor. Ugh, this is so frustrating.

Right now I have most of my files backed up on my external drive, but I still want to find a way to clone the drive and then it looks like my only choice is to do a clean install. How do I do that? Someone else set up the partition for me when I got my computer, so I don't know how to remove the version of Windows 7 to do a clean install or if I have to start messing with the partition. I only have an upgrade disk which is legitimate and what I used to install Windows when I got my MBP. We installed it from the upgrade disk the first day I got the computer, so I'm hoping that will still work to do a clean install. Please help!

Any more thoughts? I thought about calling AppleCare but I doubt they'd help since it's Windows 7, but it was not doing this before the repair. I guess I'm lucky I still have access to the files.

The black screen with the blinking cursor when you attempt to boot to Windows 7, tells us that the Windows video driver is likely missing or corrupt.

Have you tried to boot to Windows 7 in Safe mode? Hold down your F8 key when booting to Windows 7. Let's see if it starts up in Safe mode before doing anything else.

Yes, I've booted in safe mode and get the same result. I also tried to repair the disk from the Mac OSX disc but all the repair options were grayed out for my Bootcamp partition.

Also tried the system repair through Windows boot and Windows CD and it returns no errors. Still can't figure out why it booted that first day and no more times after I got it home. This is driving me crazy. I have a feeling I'm going to have to clean install, but I really don't want to do that if I can find a fix. I've tried literally about 20 different options I've found on the internet and nothing is working. Thanks for your reply.

The next thing that comes to mind is that with the change of the logic board Windows 7 is "seeing" a different hardware configuration and refuses to boot. However, running a repair install by booting the machine with your Windows 7 DVD and entering the repair console should be able to fix that by enumerating the new hardware. If that doesn't work, give up on it and remove the Windows 7 partition with the Boot Camp assistant and start over.

I have no idea why you were able to boot to Windows 7 at the Apple store. It's possible the old configuration was still in memory? That reminds me to ask... did you do a PRAM reset? If not, try that.

I believe I have tried that also Shift+Ctrl+P+R, correct? Or something like that? Sigh....it looks like I'm going to have to reinstall.

One of my employees who's a bit of a techie told me Macs act a bit wonky with Windows after a logic board change, so I was afraid it may result to this.

Thank you though for all the suggestions. I appreciate it! Just wanted to make sure I was on the right track before I did a clean install. I think we are going to attempt to do it tomorrow at work, so if you think of anything else, I'll be more than happy to try it.