Fix MBR w/o Windows CD?

I have a ~two year old M11xR2 that did not come with a Windows CD. It's running Windows 7, recently migrated to an SSD with the help of AlienRespawn. I can create a bootable USB device with AlienRespawn.

I'd like to use gparted to get rid of the respawn partition, recovering about 15GB of space, as it's on a USB key now... but if I delete the partition and resize the main partition, Windows won't be able to boot.

All the instructions I've seen have said to boot with the Windows CD and do a shift+F10 to get a command prompt and fix the MBR/bootloader from there... but without a Windows 7 CD, I'm not able to accomplish this.

Is there a standard way of doing this or making such a boot device (USB; I don't have a CD writer on the laptop, just an external CD reader) on the M11xR2?

Thanks!

Rob

 

I know you can make a Windows 7 Installer USB stick.
Did you try this?
How to create a bootable Windows 7 USB flash drive | Ars Technica

 

I did. Unfortunately, I don't have a Windows 7 ISO (I didn't purchase Windows 7 from the Microsoft Store, it came with the laptop) and the tool itself won't launch for reasons unknown.

Thanks for the thought!

Rob

 

The Windows 7 ISO files are freely available - http://www.mydigitallife.info/official-windows-7-sp1-iso-from-digital-river/
Just download one, and then either burn it to a DVD or use http://images2.store.microsoft.com/prod/clustera/framework/w7udt/1.0/en-us/Windows7-USB-DVD-tool.exe to make a bootable USB stick.

 

You can also try hitting F8 at the Alienware logo screen. It will take you to the advanced boot options.

Choose "Repair your computer", Windows will start loading files and will then bring you 6 options, one of those will be a command prompt

If you can't access F8 because the MBR is damaged then you definitely need to download the ISO

 

Just to add to what my partner said. You can use any Windows 7 disc for that and create the bootable USB.