"bootmgr not found"; usual solutions not working

[kep55]

After having been turned off for over 8 days my Windows 7 Home unit threw up a "bootmgr not found" error. Using the Windows 7 install disk for system recovery, which could not find any instances of Windows for some reason, , using the various command line commands (bootrec /fixboot; bootrec /fixmbr; bootrec /RebuildBCD), and rebooting numerous times had no effect. The boot drive is a Samsung 850 EVO SSD and was working just fine. Windows system repair made two of three repairs but said it couldn't automatically repair after the third process. What other options do I have?

 

[captaincharisma]

is the drive showing up in BIOS?

 

[kep55]

Come to think of it, no it doesn't. I switched to my old HP Pavilion for now so I'll need to move the vid card etc back to the bad box. I believe only two drives show up when there are supposed to be three - SSD + 2HDD

 

[captaincharisma]

if you have 3 drives in your PC then it would be hard to tell which one windows is trying to repair. it would be best to disconnect all drives and try to boot only with the drive windows is on which i assume is the SSD

 

[kep55]

I'll give that a shot this weekend. Any idea why a SSD drive that's about 2 years old would go wonky after being turned off for 10 days? It's primarily used to hold the OS and programs. Files are held on the rust plates.

 

[kep55]

I disconnected two of the three disc drives. I left the Samsung SSD connected. Started up the unit and nothing. Moved to another SATA port. Nothing. Swapped cables. Nothing. Looks like my SSD is toast. And I'm guessing there's no way to recover any data on that SSD. The two HDD are working just fine. I do have a system backup from October 2018 that I'm going to check out. Hopefully I can pull a HDD from another machine and use it as the "new" boot drive.

 

[kep55]

Checked with Samsung. Recovery of data from an SSD is not possible. Anyone want a Samsung hockey puck?

 

[kep55]

Okay, latest problem. Aside from a high pitched whine that may be coming from a recently installed video card fan, I was able to find a clone of the SSD and restored it to a new HDD. Still get bootmgr not found. I can't even get the fool machine to boot from the Win7 CD. Any assistance would be greatly appreciated.

 

[kep55]

Pulled the cables from the CD drive and reattached. Made sure the CD/DVD drive was the first boot device. Inserted Win7 disc into CD/DVD drie on boot. NOTHING! The drive had been working a few days ago when I discovered the SSD had puked. Now what?

 

[captaincharisma]

Pulled the cables from the CD drive and reattached. Made sure the CD/DVD drive was the first boot device. Inserted Win7 disc into CD/DVD drie on boot. NOTHING! The drive had been working a few days ago when I discovered the SSD had puked. Now what?

not sure what you mean by "puked" but if it means it failed then you need to replace it

 

[kep55]

Sorry about that, Cap'n. "Puked" is a technical term used by the IT department where I worked for 20+ years. It means "Alles ist kaput", "Se ha ido", "C'est parti", "Imekwenda", "Qel, jim, qar'a' sorcerer".

 

[captaincharisma]

Sorry about that, Cap'n. "Puked" is a technical term used by the IT department where I worked for 20+ years. It means "Alles ist kaput", "Se ha ido", "C'est parti", "Imekwenda", "Qel, jim, qar'a' sorcerer".

so basically translation was it failed and here is my life story lol

 

[howtobeironic]

From my perspective:
1)it's not only the drive, I feel like something else is also toast
2)Deploying a clone of the toasted SSD should :
-Work if it was before the SSD WA was toast
-Not work if it was later on

So, as I said, a drive alone would not be able to block you from booting into reparation drive. I suggest suspecting on the things on the PC such as the motherboard.

 

[kep55]

Well, I bought a new LG drive at MicroCenter (for $17 I figured I wasn't out that much). Was able to get Win7 disc seen and WinRE to run. Ran repair from WinRE, rebooted, then ran bootrec / FixMbr, bootrec /FixBoot, and bootrec /RebuildBcd. And...
It's alive, master. IT'S ALIVE I TELL YOU.
Now to get the other two HDD to show up under Win7. They're showing in BIOS.
I might throw the SSD into another machine just to see if it's completely dead or what.

 

[howtobeironic]

Well, I bought a new LG drive at MicroCenter (for $17 I figured I wasn't out that much). Was able to get Win7 disc seen and WinRE to run. Ran repair from WinRE, rebooted, then ran bootrec / FixMbr, bootrec /FixBoot, and bootrec /RebuildBcd. And...
It's alive, master. IT'S ALIVE I TELL YOU.
Now to get the other two HDD to show up under Win7. They're showing in BIOS.
I might throw the SSD into another machine just to see if it's completely dead or what.

Good to see it back working again. A long shot but the indexing parts on those HDD's may be corrupted.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system The information on this sticky may help a lot.
An extra, when you get to Disk Management you can see this 3 chances for the HDDs:
-They are there, you can see the partitions etc, but there are not any drive letters on them. Then right click on them, hit "Assign Letter" and give them a letter from the list (Up to you to choose which), then they should work as normal.
-You see them, there's one big partition (unallocated space or unknown partition) on them. Then you need to format them, so if you can go back them up and do so.
-The disks are not there at all. Then read the sticky. (Make sure that you installed the drivers on the cd that came with your motherboard.)

Cheers on getting it back to work

 

[kep55]

Well, I bought a new LG drive at MicroCenter (for $17 I figured I wasn't out that much). Was able to get Win7 disc seen and WinRE to run. Ran repair from WinRE, rebooted, then ran bootrec / FixMbr, bootrec /FixBoot, and bootrec /RebuildBcd. And...
It's alive, master. IT'S ALIVE I TELL YOU.
Now to get the other two HDD to show up under Win7. They're showing in BIOS.
I might throw the SSD into another machine just to see if it's completely dead or what.

Good to see it back working again. A long shot but the indexing parts on those HDD's may be corrupted.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system The information on this sticky may help a lot.
An extra, when you get to Disk Management you can see this 3 chances for the HDDs:
-They are there, you can see the partitions etc, but there are not any drive letters on them. Then right click on them, hit "Assign Letter" and give them a letter from the list (Up to you to choose which), then they should work as normal.
-You see them, there's one big partition (unallocated space or unknown partition) on them. Then you need to format them, so if you can go back them up and do so.
-The disks are not there at all. Then read the sticky. (Make sure that you installed the drivers on the cd that came with your motherboard.)

Cheers on getting it back to work

All three HDD show up in BIOS,Device Manager and Disk Management. However, one has a yellow triangle in the 'Disk 1" box and is marked as "FOREIGN". Another doesn't show the two partitions correctly. The cables for the drives are in the same connectors as always.
SOLVED IT! After looking at Disk Management again I saw the two other HDD did NOT have rive letters assigned. I also "imported" the drive mare a "Foreign", whatever the blank that means. Sheesh. I gotta get new glasses.

 

[howtobeironic]

Well, I bought a new LG drive at MicroCenter (for $17 I figured I wasn't out that much). Was able to get Win7 disc seen and WinRE to run. Ran repair from WinRE, rebooted, then ran bootrec / FixMbr, bootrec /FixBoot, and bootrec /RebuildBcd. And...
It's alive, master. IT'S ALIVE I TELL YOU.
Now to get the other two HDD to show up under Win7. They're showing in BIOS.
I might throw the SSD into another machine just to see if it's completely dead or what.

Good to see it back working again. A long shot but the indexing parts on those HDD's may be corrupted.
http://www.tomshardware.co.uk/forum/265764-32-guide-installed-disk-system The information on this sticky may help a lot.
An extra, when you get to Disk Management you can see this 3 chances for the HDDs:
-They are there, you can see the partitions etc, but there are not any drive letters on them. Then right click on them, hit "Assign Letter" and give them a letter from the list (Up to you to choose which), then they should work as normal.
-You see them, there's one big partition (unallocated space or unknown partition) on them. Then you need to format them, so if you can go back them up and do so.
-The disks are not there at all. Then read the sticky. (Make sure that you installed the drivers on the cd that came with your motherboard.)

Cheers on getting it back to work

All three HDD show up in BIOS,Device Manager and Disk Management. However, one has a yellow triangle in the 'Disk 1" box and is marked as "FOREIGN". Another doesn't show the two partitions correctly. The cables for the drives are in the same connectors as always.
SOLVED IT! After looking at Disk Management again I saw the two other HDD did NOT have rive letters assigned. I also "imported" the drive mare a "Foreign", whatever the blank that means. Sheesh. I gotta get new glasses.

Please right click the foreign marked drives on Device Manager, go onto Properties. There should be an error code down there. Try to find its description here: https://support.microsoft.com/en-gb/help/310123/error-codes-in-device-manager-in-windows