Adding Windows 7 boot entry in an EFI bootloader

Question

Long story short, I use EasyBCD and accidentally delete the Windows 7 boot entry from the boot manager. My laptop is Asus N46VZ and it uses EFI. I want to restore the bootloader by adding the windows 7 boot entry.

For more detail, I use EasyBCD 2.1 to add Ubuntu entry to the boot manager since after installing Ubuntu, I can't boot to Ubuntu. However, it was no use since EasyBCD couldn't identify any boot entry. I tried to add some Ubuntu entries and a Windows 7 entry but still didn't see any of them in EasyBCD (in the Windows Boot Menu, they all appeared). Later, I realized that EasyBCD 2.1 didn't support EFI but EasyBCD 2.2 beta does. That's why the entries doesn't show up in EasyBCD 2.1. Then, I downloaded EasyBCD 2.2 and deleted the added entries leaving a Windows 7 and a Ubuntu entry. The problem may come from here when I delete the wrong Windows 7 entry.

However, when I boot to the Windows 7 entry, the black screen appears and nothing happens. I'm able to use the F9 key to load the asus recovery wizard.

Is there any chance I can add the missing (corrupted ?) Windows 7 entry back to the boot manager? Or I must use the recovery wizard to recover Windows to 1st partition (which I may lose many softwares and files) ?

I googled and found a solution here: How can I repair the Windows 8 EFI Bootloader? but I haven't tried yet. I intend to give it a try but I have some questions: Is it possible to use bootrec from a Windows 7 32-bit add boot entry ? Moreover, does the recovery wizard need to be booted in EFI instead of BIOS ?

Solution

EasyUEFI may be useful:

Some details from that site:

EasyUEFI is free software to manipulate the EFI/UEFI boot entries. You can use it to create, delete and edit boot entries, specify a one-time boot entry for the next restart, or change the boot order without entering BIOS setup. Supports building a bootable Windows PE image. After building the image file, you can use it to create a bootable USB flash drive or use 3rd-party burner software to burn it to CD/DVD. If you suspect your system is failing to boot because of a missing or corrupt (U)EFI boot entry, you can use this bootable media to repair it.

Supported Host Operating Systems

• Manipulate the (U)EFI boot entries: (U)EFI-based Windows Vista or later
• Create bootable Windows PE disk: (U)EFI-based Windows 7, Windows 8
  • If elevation is required, you will be prompted for it.

Supported Destination Operating Systems

• (U)EFI-based Windows/Linux

Comments

[user1686]

I'm a bit confused. Did you remove Windows from the Microsoft BOOTMGR menu, or did you remove BOOTMGR itself from the UEFI boot menu?

[Duong Thang]

I remove Windows from the Microsoft BOOTMGR menu. I still see the Windows Boot Manager in the BIOS (EFI?).

[Harry Johnston]

If you have a Windows 7 installation DVD, you can boot to it and use the startup repair option. Or start a command line and use the bcdboot c:\windows command.

[Duong Thang]

I tried to use the Windows 7 64-bit recovery but it said that the version of system recovery is not compatible.

[slm]

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