Window 7 Ultimate - Recovery Disc

My friend has a computer that has Windows 7 Ultimate (64 bit) on it. His computer crashed and he is now getting a message about BOOTMGR missing. The thing is, he does not know where his disc is and he never created a recovery disc… If I create a recovery disk on my computer running Windows 7 Home Premium (64 Bit) will it work to get his computer up and running?

It will work. Some folks seem to think a Recovery CD is specific to the original install regarding some possible drivers installed, but I do not know for sure. But it will get him in the Windows Repair scenario.

He has tried the F8 command and is not able to start Win RE from there?

Has he changed his drives around lately?

I don't think he has tried F8 or changed his drives around; he is not very computer savvy. He told me it was having problems with shutting down and not letting him turn it back on as well, which to me sounds like overheating. So my guess is the last time it crashed it corrupted some files, but corrupting the bootmgr file seems somewhat odd to me, but I suppose it is possible.

I did have another friend telling me that he though you had to have a specific recovery disc coded for your specific Windows CD Key, but that sounded absurd to me. The reason I wasn’t sure it would work was because while they are both the same shell, they have different features and was unsure if the bootmgr would call those features or not.

Thanks for the help Saltgrass!

Sounds like he is having some type of problem regarding a hard drive, or some driver associated with it. Of course, a virus should always be considered.

Tell him he might have to run a Startup Repair 3 times to get the system back.

He may want to start with using the WinRE with the command prompt option and typing the following with enter after each.

Bootrec /fixmbr
bootrec /fixboot

Let us know. When he gets it running you might want to check the event viewer to see what errors might have been showing up. Perhaps that would help narrow down the problem solution.

Well, I am pretty sure that his computer is now fixed. I went over there last night after work, did the recovery with my recovery disc, and typed in those commands you mentioned in the repair screens command prompt.

Turned on and booted up after the first recovery. It stayed on for about 20 minutes then it suddenly died. Even though he said it wouldn’t turn on for like 10-20 minutes after crashing I went ahead and tried to turn it back on. Well, the LEDs came on and the fans ran, but that is all; nothing else powered up. I have had this happen before, it was the power supply. So I told him he probably needed to replace the power supply… We went and bought a Thermal Take PS; I put it in, booted right up and it has been running since about 7PM last night, so over 18 hours.

Also, once I got it back up the second time (with a new power supply) I checked the event viewer (I’m not very familiar with this screen) and it mentioned Kernel-Power so I’m guessing it was saying it either didn’t have enough power, or lost power when it died.

Again, thanks for your help Saltgrass. Lets hope it stays running strong for quite a while.

-Brad