BOOTMGR Missing

Ok long story.

I have 2 hard drives. HArd drive #1 has windows 7 RC1 installed, and #2 is storage.

I got a copy of windows 7 pro and decided to install that and move over since RC1 will eventually vanish.

I installed everything new and moved over music and everything to the #2 hard drive installation of windows.

Then i reformatted the first hard drive and everything breaks loose.

BOOTMGR is missing when I try to boot.

I did startup repair like 10 times and it says successfully done, but nada. Says the problem is "Partition Table Corrupted" or something like that, and it said it repaired it, but won't let me boot.

Also tried exporting the old BCD and doing a rebuild but it says the directory c:/boot/ cant be found. When i initially do the startup repair, it doesnt find any operating systems, but when i do bootrec /rebuildbcd, it finds it but when i hit 'Y' to add it to the store, it says 'Element not found'.

Also i've tried bootrec /fixbmr, /fixboot all that. And when it lists the OS's and nothing is there, you can do the load drivers to browse. Well I can browse the whole hard drive and everything is fine, but just no BCD.

Anyone have any suggestions?

Could I reinstall windows overtop and it will keep my files there still ?

Or could i reinstall another OS on hard drive #1 and go in and edit the files on #2 to somehow fix the MBR ?

You could try 'upgrading' which would leave your files intact.

The one with the messed up MBR is Windows 7 Pro, so would re-installing it give an upgrade option ?

Just said to take out disc, boot normally, then re-insert disc. Obviously I can't boot normally though.

Originally Posted by smurg

Or could i reinstall another OS on hard drive #1 and go in and edit the files on #2 to somehow fix the MBR ?

If Windows won't start there are 3 magical commands that will usually repair the
bootmanager files to resolve partition problems. Boot from the install disk and
select "Repair your computer" and under the "System Recovery Options" go to the
"Command Propmpt" and type and enter these three commands:

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd

Reboot and Ta Da!

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
The operation completed successfully

Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Element not found.

Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Found 0 Windows installations.

Go to Start > Run, and type diskmgmt.msc and see if there are any partitions with no drive letters.

Better yet, attach a screen shot of your partitioning scheme.

Originally Posted by smurg

Bootrec.exe /FixMbr
The operation completed successfully

Bootrec.exe /FixBoot
Element not found.

Bootrec.exe /RebuildBcd
Scanning all disks for Windows installations.

Found 0 Windows installations.

How are you booting up to run those commands?




CAN you go to your C: drve and type dir and get a list of any files?

on your c: drive run this

Attrib bcd /s

and

Attrib bootmgr /s

If you are running rc ... it should be in \boot folder and bootmgr should be in the root


if you have the final 7600 they both appear to have been moved to deep inside the windows folder.

If they can't be found you must not be on a hard drive with windows installed... or you somehow got into the partition that Win 7 sets up for itself.


Do you have more than one hard drive? If I hot swap a SATA drive my whole bios boot sequence changes and my primary OS is no longer the first boot drive.

I don't think flash drives and sd cards change the hard drive's letters... but that's something you would have to consider.

Maybe your bios is trying to boot a USB or SD drive

Look carefully in your bios at the drives that are available and put your primary hard drive FIRST and disable everything else that may be in the second and third boot sequence.

Also check what the other guy said about the disk partitions. I just use fixdisk to look... cause I'm old school and forget the new tool name. DON"T change anything .. just LOOK.

Good luck