Bootmgr is missing recurring after fresh installs

Hey all I know this is a common problem but so far I have been unable to fix it with any of the answers I've found anywhere. Let explain the situation in detail.

I recently purchased a new OCZ 64GB SSD to install Windows 7 64 bit on. I have a separate 500 GB HDD for storage, but I completely disconnect this drive when doing my install because the Windows 7 install disk will not recognize my SSD if it's not the only drive plugged in.

After installing Windows everything works fine for a time. I am able to reboot multiple times during the windows update process (btw this is a possible culprit for the issue that is occuring) up until the first 5 security updates for Sevice Pack 1. After installing these updates and shutting down my PC will not boot up and I get the bootmgr is missing error. I have at this point hooked my HDD back up, but it is well after my Windows install has finished, so there doesn't seem to be any way that Windows is writing the bootmgr file to my HDD because I have booted up multiple times with neither the windows install disk in the dvd drive nor the HDD plugged in.

This has happened 4 or 5 times to me now and it's getting really frustrating. I'm trying to figure out if something's wrong with my SSD or if there's some update in Windows 7 sevice pack 1 that is incompatible with my hardware. Thanks again for your time.

Check in control panel, administrative tools, computer management, storage, disk management and see if your SSD is set as system boot and active. Also ensure that your SSD is set in the bios to be the first boot device and that you have no USB storage devices plugged i a boot time.

The way you state the problem, you seem sure the problem is the Windows Updates. I run a 128G SSD and a 2 TB secondary drive and have not seen that type of problem.

You don't give any info about your system. But I have to wonder why Windows 7 will not see the SSD if the HDD is plugged in? What SATA ports do you have the drives in, and are any of these ports special, like on another controller?

If you system appears to favor the HDD, a bootmgr is missing message would mean the system is looking in the wrong place for it. If you are running an MBR system, and you probably are, do you show an active partition on the HDD?

Have you gotten involved at all with the Intel Rapid Start install?

Pat mentions using Disk Management. If you would use the snipping tool to take a picture of the Disk Management window and attach using the paperclip on the advanced replies, it might help. Make sure and expand the window so we can see the comments about the different partitions.